is not that I did choose thee Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Neidert. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Todd Nyberg. I'd like to speak to you on the
subject of forgiving others. Have you ever been wronged? Have
you ever been abused? Have you ever been slandered?
Have people ever attributed things to you that just were not true?
Of course you have. Everyone has experienced being
wronged by others. Now, with that in mind, maybe
you're in the experience of it right now, being wronged, being
abused, being trespassed against. Listen to this verse of Scripture.
In Luke 11, verse 4, the Lord says, when He teaches us to pray,
forgive us our sins. We also forgive everyone that
is indebted to us. Now, this is what is, this is
a part of what is known as the disciple's prayer. When the Lord
was teaching us to pray, he said, when you pray, say this, forgive
us of our sins, for we forgive everyone that's indebted to us. Now, this is something that I
am made to pray every day, every time I pray. Lord, forgive me
of my sins. As long as we commit sin and
sins, we'll have a need to pray this prayer. I've had people
ask me, if our sins are forgiven, do we have to always ask over
and over for the forgiveness of sins? Yes. Yes. That's what the Lord teaches
us to do. Forgive us our sins as we forgive everyone that's
indebted to us. Now, do I do that? I cannot expect
the Lord to forgive me of my sins if I am unwilling to forgive
someone who has wronged me. Forgiving This is a gospel issue,
as we shall see. This is not just good advice
for life, but this is a gospel issue, this thing of forgiving
others. Now, we ought to do something
simply because it's the right thing to do. We ought to forgive
because it's the right thing to do, to forgive those who sin
or trespass against us. But let me appeal to your and
my self-interest. Let me give you four reasons
why it's so important to forgive others. And here's the first
reason. If we don't forgive others, we
will not be forgiven by God himself. The Lord said in Matthew 6, verses
14 and 15, if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither
will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses. He said
in Mark 11, verse 24, Or verse 25, when you stand praying,
forgive. If you have ought against any,
that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your
trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither
will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses. Now here's one very powerful
reason to forgive others. If we don't, we will not be forgiven. That's what the Lord says. Now
here's another reason We will be forgiven as we forgive. God is going to measure out our
blessings of forgiveness in the basket that we bring. We will
be forgiven as we forgive. And when our Lord taught us to
pray, He taught us to pray, Lord forgive us of our sins for we
forgive all who are indebted to us. the Lord is going to forgive
me in accordance with the way I forgive others. There's a powerful
reason to forgive. Here's a third reason. If we
forgive, we will be happier people. In Luke chapter 17, verse 3,
the Lord said, take heed when your brother trespass against
you. Do you know, forgive him, forgive him. Do you know when
When we're wronged, we're the ones in danger. Now, what do
I mean by that? When you're wronged, when someone
does you wrong, when someone misrepresents you, when someone
uses you maliciously, when they just use you and throw you under
the bus, whatever might take place, you'll have a tendency
to become bitter and resentful and angry at that person who
has treated you that way. And you'll be thinking about
how you've been wronged. And you know what all that does
when you think that way and when I think that way? It just makes
us miserable. It doesn't help the situation. It simply makes
us miserable, and we become so critical and judgmental of that
person, and it colors everything we see about that person, and
it makes us view everything that person does in a negative light,
and how miserable that makes us. It makes us victims, wallowing
in self-pity. But what a joy it is when we're
truly enabled to forgive somebody. and to do so from our heart.
You know, the happiest marriages are the marriages where people
are quick to forgive, quick to apologize, and quick to forgive. Now, here's a fourth reason why
it's so important to forgive. When we fail to forgive, Satan
has the advantage of us. Now, listen to this passage of
Scripture in 2 Corinthians 2, verses 10 and 11. Paul says,
to whom you forgive, Anything I forgive also, for if I forgive
anything to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgive I it in
the person of Christ, lest Satan should get an advantage of us,
for we are not ignorant of his devices." Now, Satan is a crafty
devil, all working. He's very smart. He's very good
at the things he does. Now, Satan does not know infallibly
whether or not I'm a believer. He has no way of knowing for
sure. But he knows this. If he can cause me to not forgive
somebody, he knows I won't be forgiven and I won't be a believer.
And this is the way he works. This is the way he acts. He tries
to create this unforgiving, critical spirit. And if we fail to forgive,
Paul tells us Satan has the advantage over us. He is controlling us
at that time when we fail to forgive. Now, on a happier note,
those are reasons why we ought to forgive, but on a happier
note, there is such a thing as the forgiveness of sins. Isn't
that wonderful? That God actually forgives sins. There is such a thing as sin.
Now if there were no God, one could argue, is there such a
thing as sin? Is there such a thing as right
and wrong? Who's to say? I mean, just survival of the
fittest. But if God is, there is such a thing as sin, and sin
is against Him. Now when David committed adultery
with Bathsheba and had her husband murdered. David did that. David,
the man after God's own heart, was guilty of this great sin,
adultery and cold-blooded premeditated murder and a horrible abuse of
power, the power he had as the king of Israel to do all those
things. David did that. Now when David confessed his
sin, he said, "...against thee, and thee only have I sinned,
and done this evil in thy sight." Now David, it seems like you
sinned against Bathsheba. It sure seems like you sinned
against Uriah. But understand this, and he did. He did. But
sin is against God. That's why it's sin. It's against
God. God reigns. God rules. and all sin is against
Him, but thank God, God really does forgive sin. It lies in His very nature to
forgive. When He proclaimed His name to
Moses, He said, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,
long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy
for thousands. Listen to this, forgiving iniquity
and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the
guilty. Now, he says he forgives sin,
and yet he'll by no means clear the guilty. You see, when he
forgives sin, what he does is he makes somebody not guilty.
That's what justification is. And then he forgives their sin.
David said, I've sinned against the Lord, and Nathan replied,
and the Lord hath put away thy sin. You see, before the sin,
there was the Savior of sinners. I love that scripture in Revelation
13, 8, where Christ is called the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. It says, "...regarding him who
his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." Christ
bore my sin. It became His sin to where He
actually became guilty of it. That's why He cried out, My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Because my sin became His
sin. He became guilty of it. It actually
became His. He took my sin in His own body. on the tree, and just as truly
as He took my sin and it became His, He takes His righteousness
and gives it to me, and it becomes mine, and I'm truly saved by
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, when He
died on the cross, He said, thou will not suffer thy holy one
to see corruption. His body didn't go through the
process of decay like yours and I will, because he made complete
satisfaction. The moment he died, that sin
was put away. It was gone. The debt was paid. Consequently, my sins are forgiven. Now, as I said, it's the very
nature of God to forgive sin. He doesn't forgive everybody's
sins. He just doesn't, and he's sorry. He said, I'll have mercy
on whom I will have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom
I will have compassion, and nobody can come up to him and say, that's
unfair if you do not forgive everybody. That's making forgiveness
an entitlement. You can't do that. No, no sir,
you can't do that. Forgiveness is in his sovereign
hands, but it is in his nature to forgive. David said, If thou,
O Lord, shouldst mark iniquity, O Lord, who shall stand? But
there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. You know, no one has the true
fear of God, that reverence and awe and respect of God, who hadn't
been forgiven. But when you've been forgiven,
it'll make you fear Him and respect Him and not want to sin against
Him. That's what the fear of the Lord
is. When you and I forgive, we're
doing the most God-like thing we can do. I want to repeat that. When you and I forgive, we're
doing the most God-like thing we can do. Shakespeare had it
right when he said, to err is human, but to forgive is divine. Now, I love the way the Bible
describes God's forgiveness. In Psalm 32, verses 1 and 2,
when David wrote that psalm after Nathan had come to him and confronted
him with his sin, he said, Blessed is he whose transgression is
forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute iniquity. Now here's how sin is forgiven.
It's covered. And when the Lord covers something,
covering sin by the blood of His Son, it's not like it's covered,
but it's still there. It's put away. It's gone. And here's why He forgives sin,
because He does not charge us. If we're believers, He doesn't
charge us. He doesn't impute our iniquity to us. It doesn't
say we didn't do those things, but He didn't charge it to our
account. He charged it to the account of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It became His sin. My sin was lifted up off on me
and placed upon him, and God doesn't charge me with it." Now
that's how God forgives sin. We read in Isaiah 44, verse 22,
I've blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions. He said,
I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgression for my
own sake. and will not remember your sins."
He said, I'll be propitious to their unrighteousness, and their
sins and iniquities I will remember no more. Now, God's got an infallible
memory, so when He says, I won't remember your sins, it's because
there's nothing there to remember. Let me read a scripture from
Jeremiah 50, verse 20. It says, In those days, and in
that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought
for And there shall be none." Now, if God goes looking for
something, He's going to find it if it's there. And the fact
of the matter is, my iniquity is not there if the Lord's forgiven
me. It's been covered. It's not been imputed to me.
It's been put away. You know, I think about preachers
talking about a judgment of believers' sins. You know, they're going
to be judged for their sins and given a reward in heaven according
to how well they've done, or maybe they're going to lose something
because of the sins they've committed. You know, if I believed that
way, I would be in complete despair. But thank God the Bible doesn't
teach anything like that. I mean, sin's put away. Somebody
says, well, the believer's sins are going to be there on judgment
day. No, they're put away. If I'm a believer, I have no
sin. It's all been forgiven. It's
all been covered. None of it has been imputed.
And there is nothing there. Every believer is justified.
Now let me go on reading in this scripture. In those days and
that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought
for, and there shall be none. And the sins of Judah, and they
shall not be found, for I will pardon them whom I reserve. Now, this is the result of the
justifying work of Christ for us and in us, the forgiveness
of sins. Now, this forgiveness is free
to us. It wasn't free to Him. It cost Him greatly. But it's
free to us. It is full David said, Bless
the Lord, O my soul, who forgiveth all thine iniquities. Not most
of them, not 99%, but all of them. It's continual, it's irreversible,
it's without probation, it's restoring to full fellowship,
and it all happens because of his faithfulness and his justice.
Listen to this scripture. 1 John 1.9 says, If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just. to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It does not say He's merciful
and gracious, although He is, but it says He's faithful and
He's just. He's faithful. You know, if He
forgives your sins, it's because He determined to do it before
the foundation of the world, and He's being faithful to what
He determined to do. You see, when you're forgiven,
you find out you've been forgiven. You see, forgiveness is not where
salvation ends. If I do this, if I do that, and
I do that, then it'll end with the forgiveness of sins. Oh,
no. Salvation begins with the full, free, frank forgiveness
of sins. And when you're forgiven, what
happens is you find out you've been forgiven. and His forgiveness
is continual. You know, every time we sin continually,
even when I'm preaching, because I have this old nature, I'm sinning,
even while I'm preaching. And the Lord has to forgive me.
He doesn't have to. I mean, in a sense, I'm not saying
that's His, but He does. If I'm gonna be forgiven, I have
to be forgiven continually, fully and restored to complete restoration. Now, what does forgiveness do
for us? Well, for one thing, it gives
us peace. The only way I have peace is
if I know all of my sins are forgiven sins. washed away in
the blood of Christ. And what comfort we have in that. God said to Isaiah, comfort ye,
comfort ye my people. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem
and say unto her, her warfare is accomplished. Her iniquity
is pardoned. For she hath received of the
Lord's hand double for all her sins. What happens as a result
of the forgiveness of sins? Cheerfulness. The Lord said to
that man, Son, be of good cheer. Thy sins be forgiven thee. What happens as the result of
the forgiveness of sins? The true fear of God. There is
forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. There's luck
to him. He that hath been forgiven much
loveth much. Now, forgive us of our sins,
for we forgive everyone that is indebted to us. Now, the Lord says, use this
argument, forgive us of our sins. We forgive everybody of their
sins. You forgive us of our sins. Oh, may the Lord enable me and
you to enter into this thing of being a forgiving person. Now, I want to read a passage
of scripture from Matthew chapter 18. We read in verse 21, Then
came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how shall my brother sin
against me? And I forgive him. Till seven
times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not
unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven.
Now that doesn't mean 490 and after the 491st time, you can
go ahead and not forgive him. No, that means infinite. infinite every time He sins against
you. And then He gives this parable,
this very important parable. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven
like unto a certain king which would take account of his servants,
and when he had begun to reckon, One was brought unto him which
owed him 10,000 talents. Now 10,000 was the biggest Greek
number there was. That was the top number. And
what that meant was more than he could pay. Millions of dollars
in infinite debt. 10,000 talents. No way this fellow
could pay this back. But for as much as he had not
to pay, this man who owed this king all this money, his lord
commanded him to be sold and his wife and children and all
that he had in payment to be made. He and all of his family
were to be thrown into debtor's prison, sold as slaves. The servant therefore fell down
and worshiped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I
will pay thee all. Now, he wasn't able to pay him
all. I suppose when he said, have patience with me, he believed
somehow I'll come up with the money. But he was unable to do
it. This was all talk, is all it was. Then the Lord of that
servant was moved with compassion. and loosed him. He set him free
and he forgave him the debt." Now there's the gospel right
there. The reason debt is paid, a debt that I could not pay.
No way I could pay it. The Lord is moved with compassion
because that's his nature. Oh, he delights in mercy. He
delights in forgiving sin. He was moved with compassion
and he set that man free and he forgave him his debt. That
great debt was forgiven. Can you imagine how that man
must have felt? Millions of dollars in debt, now all of a sudden
he was free. He didn't owe a thing. Verse
28, but the same servant went out and found one of his fellow
servants which owed him 100 pence, $15. And he laid hands on him,
and he took him by the throat saying, pay me that foul oast.
And his fellow servant fell down at his feet beside him saying,
have patience with me and I'll pay thee all. And he would not. but went and cast him into prison
till he should pay the debt. After this man had been forgiven
these millions, he would not forgive somebody $15 and had
him cast into prison. Verse 31, so when his fellow
servants saw what was done, they were very sorry. And that is
a pathetic sight, isn't it? Someone to do like that. They
were very sorry. And they came and told 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 you think of the way the
Lord has forgiven you. If you're forgiven, you know
you've been forgiven greatly. And what you've done with the
Lord is much worse than anything anybody has done to you. And
if he's forgiven you, you can forgive others. And the only
thing that'll keep somebody from forgiving others is because they
know nothing of being forgiven by the Lord himself. If you've
ever seen the Lord's forgiveness, you will be forgiven. Verse 34, And the Lord was wrath, and delivered
him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto
him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if you
from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother their trespasses."
In Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32, Paul said, be ye kind, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another. even as God, for Christ's sake,
had forgiven you. God didn't say, well, they first
need to be remorseful, and they first need to show that they're
never going to do it again, and they need to demonstrate some
true humility. No, He forgives for Christ's
sake. That's the only reason He needs. He forgives for Christ's sake,
for the sake of His Son. May you forgive one another,
Paul said. in the same way that God forgave
you. You forgive for Christ's sake
in what Christ has done for you. Now, I like the way he says forgiving
one another. He doesn't say forgiving the
other, but forgiving one another. If you're going to have a relationship
with anybody, there's going to have to be forgiveness. You see,
we're sinful, selfish people. That's what we are by nature.
And we will wrong each other. I'm not excusing that, but I'm
just saying that's the way it is. We will wrong each other.
And what we need to do is forgive one another. Oh, I want to forgive
anyone who's wronged me. And I hope that person I've wronged
will truly forgive me from their heart. You don't demand forgiveness
from others. They ought to forgive me. Where's their grace? That's a wrong attitude. Forgiveness
is not an entitlement. I don't come to somebody and
demand, you need to forgive me and act like a Christian. That's
what a Christian would do. No, that's an offensive way of thinking.
Don't think that way. Don't demand forgiveness. But
be someone who is easy to forgive. by being quick to apologize and
say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I did. Please
forgive me. Be someone quick to apologize. You know, when we confess our
sin to the Lord, we're saying, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please forgive me of my sins. And do you know that there is
nothing more cleansing than forgiving? There's nothing more cleansing
than being forgiven. Oh, what a cleansing thing it is when
I see my sins are forgiven for his namesake, that all my sin
is put away. Oh, it makes me clean before
God. You see, forgiveness means cleansing. He's faithful and just to forgive
us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And there is nothing more cleansing than being able to forgive someone,
no matter what they've done, no matter how much they've wronged
you. You forgive them, and you forgive them for Christ's sake.
Oh, there's such happiness and contentment in being able to
do that. Now, this thing of forgiveness is a gospel issue. How much have
you been forgiven? Has God forgiven you of your
sins, your great sins against Him? Your willful sins against
Him? Your evil sins against Him? Your
continual sins against Him? Has He forgiven you? Oh, if He's
forgiven you of your sin, you'll forgive others. To request a copy of the sermon
you have just heard, send your request to messages at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.