I gave my last sheet to the handout copy so I needed to have that. Alright, well last week we looked at confession and repentance in our series on Christian words and this week we're going to look at the corresponding action on the other party and that is forgiveness. I did want to make one clarification from last week. We talked about confessing and repenting from sins of omission. And there were some questions about, okay, I failed to do something that the scripture would call me to do. Isn't that pretty much how I live most every day? I'm failing to do something that the scriptures has called me to do. Do I need to be confessing every sin of omission? No, I think that may make us wildly over introspective if we attempted to identify in any given day all of the things we failed to do. We just didn't do in either the doing of other things that we're supposed to do or just simply because our mind is frail and or our spirit is dull and we didn't do some good thing that we could have done. I think where it comes in is where there are known wrongs or failures to others that we should have done and we recognize those or they've been brought up to our attention. We need to be ready to admit sins of omission. Yes, I should have been kind to consider your needs in that moment. It's not as if I need to go through and scroll through my day and remember everything I've forgotten. Sometimes, how is that even possible? So, I think there is a place where we do consider what are my sins of omission and confess those if necessary to reconcile with another, but not be overly introspective about trying to find every sin of omission. Let's talk about forgiveness though. How is forgiveness generally understood and or misunderstood? Sweeping some wrong under the rug. Oh, don't worry about it. It's just forgiven. Meaning, we're not really going to deal with it. We're just going to try to forget about it and not really deal with it. Forgetting about an offense. Just not remembering that an offense was done is not the same as forgiveness. Forgiveness has a component of forgetfulness to it, but it's not the same as just forgetting. Water paths under the bridge and it's just gone and I just didn't remember it. That wasn't forgiven, that was just forgotten. It's not expressing to a person that you have forgiven them. That's not forgiveness. That's a piece of forgiveness, but that's not forgiveness itself. We'll talk about inward and outward forgiveness tonight. Or it's not acting as if a wrong ever happened to you. Just kind of putting it out of mind. That may again be a part of the response. of forgiveness, but it's not equated with forgiveness itself. So let's go to the scriptures and just ask, what do the scriptures define forgiveness as? There are some biblical words in the Old Testament, the Hebrew words in the New Testament, the Greek words. The most common word for Forgiveness in Hebrew is Nasa. It just simply means to lift off or take away. It's a word that's commonly used for all sorts of physical things that you would lift off or take away. And when I was learning Hebrew in seminary, the word Nasa sounded like NASA to me. And so, lift off, take away. That's how I remembered that Hebrew word. We find it, turn with me to Exodus 34. This is a familiar passage, Moses The children of Israel have sinned against God in the building of the Golden Calf. Moses is responding and requesting God's grace upon them. He's interceding for them. The two tablets are going to be replaced, etc. Moses is requesting from the Lord to see his glory. The Lord responds, I won't let you see me, but I, in essence, I'm going to tell you of my glory. And this, he says in Exodus 34, 6, the Lord passed by in front of him being Moses and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth. Verse seven, who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives, nasa, lifts away, iniquity, transgression, and sin. And the idea here is, in forgiveness, is that the burden of the wrong is taken off of you. So that's the pictorial idea in this word Nassau. What's interesting is the other primary Hebrew word for forgiveness in the Old Testament is used in verse 9. So let's just keep reading. He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished though, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations. We'll just leave that little phrase and that conundrum there for another time. Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship. He said, If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go along in our midst, even though the people are so obstinate, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as your own possession. This word pardon is the Hebrew word salach, and it is also used often in the Old Testament, and it means to Pardon like a ruling official would pardon or release from the obligation for the the repayment or the punishment of a criminal Okay, so these two words to lift off to pardon. Okay carrying basically the same idea just with two different word pictures the Greek word in the New Testament is Fi'emi, it means to send away, to leave alone, allow. Several verses there, we won't go through them. The other word is to karidzomai, which means to give a grace, to give a gift. It's often used in terms that we would say don't really have anything to do with forgiveness, they just are someone giving someone something. And so putting all of these concepts together, we get the sense of what forgiveness is. It's a lifting off of the burden of a wrong someone has done. It's a pardoning of them. It's a permitting, an allowing of relationship to still be there despite the fact that you've wronged me. And it carries the idea of extending a grace, giving a gift. It's given freely. It's not earned. It's not deserved. It's not paid for. It's a gift. Forgiveness is a gift. We'll look at some of those verses here. But let's consider the scriptural passages that speak most clearly about forgiveness. First, we just looked, it's bound up in the character of God, Exodus 34, verses 6 through 9. Turn to Leviticus chapter 4, verse 20, for a statement in, again, in the law, The law, again, given for those who came to relationship with God by faith, and yet they were maintaining an active relationship with God, and the law gave them the way in which to do that. An atonement for sin. Verse 20, Leviticus 4. This is a sin offering. He shall do with the bull, just as he did with the bull of the sin offering, thus he shall do with it. So the priest shall make atonement for them, and they will be forgiven. Forgiveness is associated with an offering, a death rendered, a sacrifice made, an atonement offered. So there's a payment for the sin that's been made and that's why forgiveness is given. It's a matter of justice that's been enacted in the law here. Atonement has been made, a payment has been rendered, the death for the sin has been accomplished. forgiveness in the righteousness of God is now able to be extended. It's the grounds of the sinner's hope. Psalm 130 verses three and four. David, the psalmist, often declared the grace of the forgiveness here. If you, O Lord, Psalm 30 verse three, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? the weight, the crushing weight of the righteousness of God responding to our sin, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared, that you may be responded to. So it's the grounds of the sinner's hope. Just a very interesting note, in Luke chapter 1 verse 77, in the exclamation, of Zacharias there at the very beginning of Luke's gospel. Zacharias being a technically an Old Testament Saint, the father of John the Baptist, expressing that God will bring us the forgiveness of our sins. Then at the end of the book of Luke, almost the very last words, the expression that The gospel message is to be proclaimed throughout the world, extending the forgiveness of sins. So this is the grace of the New Testament proclamation, the hope of the Old Testament believer that God would forgive sins. I gave just verses, I'll let you look up. In Acts 5.31, 10.43, 13.38, even others as well, forgiveness is equated with salvation in the apostles' preaching. So as the Apostles preached the Gospel message, it was always a message of forgiveness of sins. We talked this morning about one message, one Gospel. We must know what that Gospel is from the very words of the Apostles themselves as they proclaim the Gospel message to those who heard them. And one of the things they proclaim is that forgiveness of sins comes through Jesus Christ. So that's God's forgiveness of us, and we need to understand that. Let's talk about our relationship with one another, because the scripture speaks to that as well. Our forgiveness of another. Mark 11.25 Forgiveness begins in the heart. We're going to come back to this verse, but I want you to turn there with me and look at it. Mark 11.25 A statement of Jesus, very plain, very clear. Whenever you stand praying, so just as you go about your day, no special circumstance, you're just coming before God. Forgive if you have anything against anyone. In other words, someone's done you wrong. so that your father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. So, we need to ask questions about this verse. Is the person who wronged me there in that verse? Are they standing there? Who's standing there? Just you, right? You're standing there, praying before God. It's just between you and God. And you remember that you have something against someone. They've done you wrong. What is the responsibility of the worshipper before God at that moment? Forgive. Does that mean to verbally express to that person? They're not there. So where's the forgiveness happening? It's happening in the heart. As you stand before God, I remember so-and-so has done me wrong, bad wrong. What is your response as you stand there before God? Lift off. Take away. Pardon. Release. Okay? Forgiveness first begins in your heart, in response to God, and then it will be extended to that person. Okay? Now turn to Luke chapter 17. Another key instruction in the New Testament. Again, from the lips of Jesus on forgiveness. Luke 17, verse 3 and 4. Be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. Now who's involved? It's not between the person and God alone. Now we've got the offending party involved. And what happens? He repents, maybe at the rebuke or maybe just at his repentance. Forgive him is the calling. If he sins against you seven times a day and returns to you seven times saying, I repent, forgive him. Ephesians 4.32 is a very similar expression in the didactic literature, the writings that are teaching us, not just the gospel accounts of Jesus' words, but Paul writing to the church, he says, "...be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." The grounds of our forgiving of other people is that God has forgiven us. It's based on an emulation of God's character. Look at the very next words in Ephesians 4. I'm sorry, that's the end of Ephesians 4. The very next words are Ephesians 5. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. Walk in love just as Christ loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. This forgiveness is in childlike emulation of our Father. We forgive just like he forgave us and because we are his children what in in Matthew chapter 6 where the Lord's Prayer and we pray Lord forgive us our debts as we forgive others and Jesus attaches to the end of that prayer if you do not forgive others when they send against you your Heavenly Father will not forgive when you send against him a one of the most strongest warnings in the New Testament where did that come from Because we, in Matthew 5, are to be like our Father in Heaven. We are not to say, I love my neighbor and I hate my enemy. Rather, we are to be like our Father in heaven who sends rain on the evil and the good. We don't just greet our brothers. We also greet those who are hostile to us. We are to be like our Heavenly Father who is perfect. So when Jesus says, how are we to pray to our Father? Part of that is in recognition that as I am related with God as my Heavenly Father, I'm living like a child. I'm emulating my dad. living out His life through me, so He forgave me, I forgive others. Because He extended that grace to me, I extend it to others." It's based in the character of God Himself. That's the next point there, Matthew 6. It carries with it one of the strongest warnings of the New Testament, and it's based on, or worked out in, the emulating of God's own character toward us. There's a number of parables and teachings on forgiveness. I think you're familiar with those. I'll just leave those for you to work through. That brings us to pulling all this together into a workable definition. How are we going to appreciate what God has done for us, and how are we going to extend that then to other people? So here's a what ended up being a fairly lengthy definition, in order to pull these concepts together. So here it is. Forgiveness. To allow for personal reconciliation to occur. This is the aim. This is the end. This is the hope. This is what we're forgiving for. To allow personal reconciliation to happen. Because if you don't forgive, if there is a wrong between two parties, They're at odds with one another. There's a breach in the relationship. How's that going to be repaired? Are they going to pay you off with cash? Are they going to do a bunch of good things for you? Well, I appreciate all those good things, but we still got this thing over here. You stand before a judge with your traffic ticket in hand. You can tell the judge, you know, how many, you know, Civic organizations you work for and all the what a good dad you are or whatever and he's gonna say yeah But the ticket is what we have a problem with the law is against you because of this traffic violation That must be dealt with so unless the judge pardons You there's still the ticket in hand, okay so allowing for personal reconciliation, that's the goal and I think, can I just pause here and just make a side comment? The difficulty in forgiveness sometimes is because we don't want personal reconciliation to occur. We want to hold that wrong over that person's head because if we do, we have power over them. We can manipulate them, and when they aren't behaving as we want, we can pull out the card and say, hey, remember what you did? Whether we would do that very, you know, exactly like that or more subtly. I think we need to ask ourselves, the person who has wronged me, do I desire to allow reconciliation to take place? Okay? Side note there. to allow for personal reconciliation to occur by, here's how, releasing the one who has wronged you from the requirement to repay the debt or releasing them from receiving the retribution they deserve. This is what happens when someone does you wrong. You either say, well, you got to pay me back or you're going to get it. I just want to give it to you. I want to punish you. whatever ways, but in forgiveness you're releasing that, you're taking that off of them, you're pardoning them, you're allowing them to have a relationship with you without this thing being in reference. So you're releasing from the requirement to repay a debt or the receiving of retribution they deserve and instead what you do is you personally absorb the debt, the loss, the cost, the hurt, the So who's paying for the wrong? Well, you are. You're absorbing the loss, the hurt. They rightfully must pay for it. They're the ones who did the wrong. But when you extend forgiveness, you're saying, well, no payment is required. I'll just absorb the hurt. I'll just absorb the loss. And you do that in recognition of the two bullet points there. One, if the other person is a redeemed individual, if they've been redeemed by Christ, then the price of all their sin and my sin has already been paid for on the cross. That's how I'm able to forgive. Because the debt's already been paid. Christ has paid for all the sins of his elect there. There's no debt associated with them before God. So how can I say there's a debt before me? He's forgiven us. He's forgiven that person. He's forgiven me. He's forgiven every other one of his elect for whom his son died on the cross. How can I now charge payment? The debt's been paid. It's remembering what we just celebrated, that we all together, every one of us individually, who has put their faith in Christ, all your sins, Past, present and future have been forgiven once for all. And the debt has been absorbed, as it were, in the heart of God. We being his children, we absorb the debt personally and as it were, just cast it on him and say, you know what? You forgave all my sins. You forgave all his sins. I'm certainly not going to charge a debt to him. I'm not going to hold this over his head. You're freely released. When you stand praying, when you stand contemplating God, forgive in recognition that the price has already been paid. We don't need to go get a lamb and put our hand. You put your hand on the lamb and say, yep, this lamb's taking my place. Shed his blood on the offering. The lamb's already been slain. It's already been taken care of. So between you and I, I can forgive you of that debt. That's for the redeemed. But we don't just forgive the redeemed. There's nothing in any of these verses that say, well, forgive your fellow Christians, but those who haven't come to Christ, well, they get another story. No, personally, we extend the same to them. And in this recognition for the unredeemed, retribution will be fully meted out by Christ. Romans 12. Do not pay back evil for evil to anyone. Do not take your own revenge but leave room for the wrath of God. I will repay. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. If this person is not redeemed, you can extend forgiveness to them even though their debt of sins against you have not been paid by Christ. in the recognition that you don't have to carry out retribution on them, because in perfect justice, God is going to carry out retribution on them. I don't have anything to do with you. I don't have anything to do with punishing you for this sin. God's going to. So between me and you, I'm not holding you accountable in that sense, in the sense of ultimate justice. I'm going to pray for your soul, because at this point, the wrong you just did to me, God's going to make it right with you. You're released as far as I'm concerned." That's a pretty heavy, kind of makes us tremble, but that's the reality. I don't have to enact justice on that person. God will take care of that. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. So, we release. We absolve. We pardon. Well, let's talk a couple of clarifications here. That's the definition kind of gathered together from the scriptural data. A couple of clarifications. Forgiveness, on the back page there, though expected by God, is always a gift given. That's why one of the New Testament words for forgiveness is charizomai, to give a grace. You can request forgiveness. Would you forgive me? That's a very appropriate expression, expressing a desire for reconciliation with that person, knowing you really can't be reconciled until you forgive me. I have no way to pay you for that wrong you did. All I can do is ask you to give me the gift of forgiveness. It cannot be demanded by the offending party, nor is it to be extended begrudgingly by the offended party. Okay, I'll forgive you. No, it's a glad gift, it's a grace. Consider the parallel in the command to praise the Lord. Praising of the Lord is a freely given, gladly offered expression. So how can we be commended to do it? The same way we can be commanded to forgive, and yet forgiveness is a free, glad grace to extend. You can't praise the Lord begrudgingly, right? It doesn't work. You're not praising the Lord. Okay, glory be to God, you know. No, it's to be freely offered, gladly offered to the Lord. expected of every Christian, but true praise will only flow when we get our mind wrapped around the character and the truth of God. You won't praise the Lord unless you're thinking of the Lord. That's why in Psalm 145, and it was up on the screen this morning, and I tried to reference it off the top of my mind, but the reality is David says, on your glorious splendor, I will meditate. And what's the result? I will tell in the great congregation of your wonders. I will shout joyfully of your righteousness. How did he get to the point where he does that? Because he's meditating on the glories of God. How do we get to the place where we gladly give someone forgiveness with a smile on our face when they have just slapped us in the face, whether physically or emotionally, or whatever. How do we get to that place? We meditate on God, on His grace and forgiveness to us that just overwhelms us like a flood, and we are so joyful over that. We just want to emulate our Father and say, I forgive you, man. It's okay. We're reconciled. We're good. You know why? Because God forgave me everything I ever did. As we consider God, we'll be able to forgive. As we don't consider God, we'll want to hold on to that bitterness in our heart. Next clarification there, forgiveness allows immediate reconciliation of relationship and peace, and it opens the door to the process that leads to regaining trust and intimacy of fellowship. There's a lot of words in there, but you get what I'm saying? Forgiveness doesn't fix everything. Forgiveness restores the relationship and the essence that, yeah, there's not this breach in between us. And it opens the door up for a full returning to intimacy of fellowship between the two parties. Man, we are tight. Sometimes when there's a wrong done, you may forgive, but it may be a little while before you're tight again, depending on what your relationship was before, depending on how many times this person sins against you and is damaging the relationship. Sometimes there's just, in human relationships, there's just consequences to repeated sins, and those are difficult to overcome. Even though forgiveness has been granted, gladly in the heart, we don't, I'm not holding this over you, but I have to swallow hard every time I look at you not to remember that, and I'm having trouble trusting you because you've done it so many times in a row, etc. But forgiveness opens the door to beginning that process of rebuilding that trust and restoring that intimacy of fellowship. You have fellowship, but there's a depth of fellowship that needs to grow. That process of restoring and regaining trust and intimacy of fellowship is facilitated by both parties, both the offending party and the offended party, one demonstrating his repentance in real action. I mean, if you've, like our definition of repentance last week, a change of mind and heart that results in a change of action, as that person has a true change of mind and heart and their actions actually begin to change, that trust and that intimacy is rebuilt quicker. On the other side, on the forgiveness side, as the person who has been offended looks more to their Savior, remembers as they look at this person, I've forgiven you already. It's done. I know my mind is telling me, hate the person, hate the person, don't trust them, don't trust them. But my in faith, I say, Lord, give me the grace to extend just as you extend grace to me, to extend to them grace in relationship and allow that trust to be rebuilt. Allow a depth of intimacy that on natural terms really wouldn't be there because man, look what they did. But because grace is operating in our heart rather than law, we remember they've been pardoned. Yes. Okay. Okay. So that process is facilitated. Third bullet point there on clarifications. Just kind of stemming off of that second one. Forgiveness is an act of faith. It's not an act of sight. Otherwise, we would not be able to fulfill what is said in Luke 17 3. If someone sins against you and comes to you and says, I repent, forgive them. How do I know if they've really repented in their heart? I haven't seen a change of actions yet. What does it say? If they come to you and say, I repent, you have already inwardly forgiven them in your heart as you stand before God, knowing that wrong. And so when they come and they say a sincere expression of repentance, I know I was wrong. And I know that hurt you. Would you forgive me? I repent of that and I plan to change." I mean, in a sincere expression of repentance, extend what's already in your heart to them. Verbal expression of forgiveness. It's granted to another based on sincere verbal repentance, or what we would call confession. It's not granted on the subjective measurement of the the perceived level of inward repentance that I think they have. Do you see the difference? And sometimes we trick ourselves into playing the Holy Spirit and acting as if we can measure whether someone's really repented in their heart. If they come confessing their sins and saying, I repent, forgive them. Extend that, open that door to the reconciliation of the relationship. That's the Christian calling. In doing so, what we're doing is putting on display a visible symbol of the gospel. Paul says in Romans 10, if a person confesses with their mouth Jesus as Lord, they will be saved. Believes in their heart, that's something only God can see, but what do they do? They confess with their mouth Jesus as Lord. They will be saved. And what we do when we Forgive is we're basically putting on display the gospel. Someone comes and says, I believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior and Lord. I turn from my sinful ways and embrace him. What do we as the church say? Well, sounds like you're a brother in Christ. Be baptized, be brought into fellowship with the church. We do the same with forgiveness. This person says, I confess, forgive them. Fourth bullet point, it's essential that one understand the difference between and the interplay of inward forgiveness and expressed forgiveness or outward forgiveness. Inward forgiveness is when you stand praying before the Lord just between you and God, Outward forgiveness is when the person comes and says, I repent, you say, I forgive. You're expressing what's already in your heart. I forgive. Now, so implications for gospel living. Let's look on that second page. And we looked at this, I handed this out last week, but now we're gonna look at the bottom part. Forgiveness by the offended party, how to repair breaches in relationship. In faith and love, aligning yourself with God's grace. Here's what happens when someone does you wrong. First, completely overlook minor offenses, if possible, as a way of being slow to anger. Proverbs 19.11, it is the glory of a man to overlook a transgression. So, overlook. It's like somebody does something wrong to you, don't worry about it. I'm not even thinking about it. Just overlook, if it's minor. And if you can, that's how you know if you should overlook an offense. If you can. What do you mean if you can? Well, you know you haven't overlooked an offense if you can't get over it. If you're like, that bothers me. Well, you haven't overlooked it. You haven't released it. There is a breach in the relationship. So if there is a wrong done that is not just overlooked, and the reason we need to overlook small offenses is it's kind of like being over introspective about Sins of omission. I mean if we were having to express forgiveness and Repent and and go through this verbal expression for every single wrong we do to one another each day I mean, especially in our family who lives together, you know an intimate close contact. I mean we'd be doing this all the time There's nothing we'd be doing except Hey, I was wrong. I did you wrong. Would you forgive me? Yeah, I'll forgive you. Yeah, okay. So there's these minor offenses, sins of omission, commission, just realize we're sinners and we do. But if there is a wound, if there's a hurt, if it's, then there needs to be a repair. If there is a breach, there needs to be a repair of that breach. And here's how. On the one hand, confess, but let's talk about forgiveness. So if they're not gonna be overlooked, then inwardly forgive. Mark 11, 25, an internal release to the Lord of every single sin against you and relinquish the right to punish or withhold from the offending party. There's no exceptions to this sin. I mean, there's no sins that are an exception to this calling. If you any if you stand praying and remember that you have anything against anyone. Forgive. any sin. So your heart has changed. Next, extend forgiveness to the person. This is Luke 7, 3 and 4. I think I put 4 and 5 there. It's really 3 and 4. It's release of the ill will do the wrong against you as an act of obedience to Christ and as an expression of love to that offending party. This is just truly, this is just an extension and a ratification of the inward forgiveness that is already there in your heart. Look, it doesn't remove the guilt of the person in God's eyes. Only God can remove the guilt of the actual sin. They need to confess that sin to God and be restored to Him. But it does restore your relationship with this person. It's on a horizontal level. You're not acting as a priest or something. I pronounce on you forgiveness of sins. No, you're just saying, yeah, you and I are good. The fourth is probably the most important part. Continue to inwardly forgive every time this offense comes back to mind, so that this forgiven past sin is no longer a barrier to your present relationship. Remind yourself that the sin is covered, 1 Peter 4.8. Forgiveness is not forgetting. But rather, when the offense comes to mind, it's choosing to remember that you're not holding the offense against the person. You're acting as if you've forgotten. You haven't forgotten. We don't forget. I remember things that were done wrong to me in my childhood, and that's been a long time ago, longer every year. But I still remember them. We don't forget. But the calling is to relate with the person as if we've forgotten. In the, you deserve to pay me, you deserve retribution from me, aspect of that. That's the calling. I kind of listed some other implications for gospel living, other implications for gospel sharing. I'm going to let you read that here, but this is such an important thing. I want to take the last 10 minutes or so before we leave and see if there are questions or further clarifications, or how does this work its way out, or what about this case, or whatever it may be. It's OK. I mean, it's not too large of a group where we can't answer questions. Yes? Yeah. Sure. No, that's a good question. Can someone sin against me if they have, I mean, without sinning against God? In other words, should I forgive them if they haven't actually violated God's command in relation to me? And the answer is no. They cannot sin against you unless they are also violating the command of God. But what we need to remember is, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, look, if you are angry with a person, It's as if you've murdered them. So there, you know, it's almost like if someone has done violated God's command in relation to you. Yeah, they violated God's command. They got a right to wrong, a wrong to right with God as well as with you. I think that the point is, and I think what you're part of what you're asking is, well, if I just don't like what someone did, I just I just am offended at that because maybe they did me good. But I didn't like it. I don't like someone doing me that kind of good. I'm convicted or whatever. Then no, you don't need to forgive them and they don't need to repent. There may need to be an understanding and a patience with one another. But no, you don't confess or extend forgiveness unless there's a sin, a violation of God's law in relation to one another. Yes, right. That is possible to think someone has sinned against you when they're in the right. And I think just patience and tolerance and communication with one another and if you, this is where the calling is on both sides, both the offended party and the offending party in Matthew 5, in Luke, in Matthew 18. If you think someone's done wrong to you and you're not overlooking it, it's your responsibility to go tell that to them. I have a problem with you. I think you've sinned against me. Or if I'm convicted in my heart that I have sinned against someone, it's my responsibility to go to that person and to confess my sin to them. And so in that way, both parties are pursuing relationship and not just saying, well, that guy's not saying anything. I'm just going to separate from them and walk away. And wow, I hope that relationship would work. But apparently it didn't. That's not an option for Christians, you know, in a real sense. We need reconciliation, even if it's hard, even if the other party is not really trying to reconcile. And that's where the instruction is in Hebrews. So far as it is possible with you, be at peace with all men. So we pursue personal reconciliation with people as far as is possible with us. Hang on Chris, we'll get it in a minute. Any other? Scott? Yeah, I was trying to answer the question of, yeah, do we need to do this immediately and not wait? Maybe some of you would have a ready scripture of mine. Well, when you stand praying, forgive. Matthew 5 would put it on the other shoe. You're there offering your offering before the Lord, and there remember that you have a problem with a brother. Go right then. Don't continue praying. In other words, Don't continue offering your offering. Get that resolve right now. Pick up the phone. Make the call. Get your spirit right. Make sure you're taking the log out of your own eye. Get it right. Yeah, so I think there is a calling to do it immediately and not wait. Any questions or clarifications there? Let's look at implication for gospel living number two before we leave. Because I think this is where a lot of us struggle in this issue. And it gets down to real where the rubber meets the road sometimes. If the offender continues to sin in the same way after seemingly sincerely confessing. In other words, they confess their sins and I forgave them. And here they are. That was just yesterday. And here they are doing it again. The first assumption you need to make is that this may be evidence of a real weakness or immaturity in them rather than assigning that, oh, well, that obviously was a lack of repentance. They weren't sincere in their repentance. No, they may have been fully sincere in their repentance, but they are weak in this area. They're struggling with this sin. They have bad habits of communication, etc. That needs to be the first assumption. Compassion upon the person. Not irritation and frustration upon them. Isn't that what we hope God does with us? When we continually do the same sins over and over and over? Does He write us off? Does He act as if, oh, you never repented? No? Okay. Therefore, the immediate response is to simply extend forgiveness again. If my brother comes to me seven times a day, do I need to forgive him? Peter asked. And what was Jesus' response? Seventy times seven. Stop keeping count. Just forgive if they repent. Okay, so their assumption there is they're sincere in their repentance. They're just struggling. They're having a hard time with this one. It may need to be attended with a rebuke or a correction to say, I think you're having a problem with this. I forgive you, but can I help you? Because this seems to be an issue. And yeah, I mean, it's causing like a continual breach between me. And if it's so much between me and you, probably is between you and other people, too. And I don't want you to live like that. OK, so an offer to help to strengthen them. And that's the whole sense of Galatians 6, 1 and 2 of First Thessalonians 5. And just continue that process with them, that compassionate, gracious help to them, until it becomes evident that there is in fact no grace operating in their heart. For the believer, that would be the process of church discipline. For the unbeliever, it would kind of be more like, whoa, I'm recognizing that you're not behaving as a believer. believing wife of an unbelieving husband, I just continue to love you and stop confronting you about all of your sins and just live with you this way. Because it's obvious there's no grace operating in your heart. Or, 1 Peter 3, later in that same chapter, you keep getting persecuted, give a reasonable expression for the hope that's within you that you don't see operating within them. all the while keeping a good conscience, not sitting back against them, getting irritated, frustrated with them. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah. Yes. So the statement is that this teaching is necessary and good for those who are more on the immature side of life, growing up young, and it needs to be taught to them. And I would say, yes, I will continue to teach it to the church and encourage it to be taught. But that's also why I'm teaching it to you, because you have young people in your life And you now have a handout. You've got as much as I do. So, yeah, I encourage us all. Share these things with one another. Make these things the part of our family dynamic. You know, in a family, in busy days, in young lives, it's easy to just manage the situation on the day and not set aside time to look into God's Word and how are we doing what we're doing. And we need to encourage. our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, whoever it may be, to take time to stop and consider the things of the Word of God. Yes. So if you're in a situation where you're trying to counsel someone or help someone and you need some help, call. That's what the Lord has put us there for. Ask a Christian friend for help and counsel, etc. Let me close this. If you have other questions, I'm available here. You're going to have to wait on that question, Amy. I'm sorry. They tell me I take too much time already anyway. Let's pray. Our Lord, we thank you for the grace of forgiveness that is to us. We have celebrated it tonight in your Son. It is the joy of our life if we give consideration to it, that all the sins we have sinned against you and all the ways we continue to do so, you so graciously forgive. How great is the sacrifice of your Son. We give you the glory, him the credit, and just give the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to your name tonight. Lord, help us to be true children of our Father in heaven.