Let's open with a prayer. Dear gracious Father, as we gather this morning, we are thankful for our time that we're able to spend as brothers and sisters in studying your word. We pray that you open up our hearts and our minds to what you want us to learn about each other in our relationship with you. In your precious name, amen. Well, as you can tell, Andre's out of town. But he assigned me chapter 12 today. So you don't lose place and we keep on with the schedule. Don't know exactly when a new topic will start. The chapter 12 entitled The True Story of the Cross is a most interesting and kind of a unique chapter. in that it talks about attacks within Christendom instead of so much attacks from the outside, the unbelieving world. And in this chapter, we're gonna look at the connection between the cross and forgiveness. And for some, forgiveness can be a touchy, sensitive subject. not just what the examples were in the book and the chapter, but maybe in our own lives, we've got a skeleton or two laying around when it comes to forgiveness, either on one side or the other. If there's enough sheets on your table there, we're going to take time this morning and look at a few Bible passages, which is a little bit different from Andre. But we'll also be looking at the book also. The cross is a word that's in the New Testament about 28 times. The cross was a symbol of punishment going all the way back to about the 4th century BC between the Babylonians and the Assyrians. bringing it on into the New Age, so to speak, and the Romans bringing it on into the New Testament period. So the crucifixion on the cross has been around for a long time, not just what we read in the New Testament. It's a gruesome form of punishment, and the Romans used it quite well. The term forgiveness, is an interesting term in that everybody can come up with their own little definition, but I'll throw one out there and you can adjust it in your brain one way or another. An act done by someone who has been wrong verbally, physically, spiritually, maybe economically, and in a way of saying, it's okay. It's all right this time. Let's go on. The acknowledgment of saying that you forgive someone can be very uplifting to someone who has wronged you. And in most respects, they are most gracious to hear that term coming from you. I don't know if you have a soft copy or a hard copy or electronic copy of the book. The introduction has a quote in here, I would catch a glimpse of the cross and suddenly my heart would stand still. In an instinctive, intuitive way, I understood that something more important, more tumulus, more passionate was at issue other than our own causes, however noble they might be. I should have worn it. It should have been my uniform, my language, my life. I shall have no excuse. I can't say I didn't know. I knew from the beginning and turned away. The primary symbol of Christianity has always been the cross. The death of Jesus for our sins is at the heart of the gospel, the good news. Increasingly, however, What the Christian church has considered good news is considered by the rest of our culture is bad news. In a few short weeks, we'll be coming up on Holy Week. And so that cross is gonna be most evident to us when we get to Holy Week and we come to Good Friday. In the Christian account, Jesus dies so that God can forgive sins. For many, that seems ludicrous or even sinister. Why would Jesus have to die? is a question that the author has heard from people in New York far more often than, does God exist? Why couldn't God just forgive us, they asked. The Christian God sounds like the vengeful gods of primitive times who needed to be appeased by human sacrifice. Why can't God just accept everyone at, or at least, who are sorry for their wrongdoings? While the Christian doctrine of the cross confuses some people, it alarms others. Some liberal Protestant theologians reject the doctrine of the cross altogether because to them it looks like some divine child abuse. On your sheet, I've got it divided up between the cross on one side and forgiveness on the other. And we'll just look at a few of these. You can look up the rest of them if you like, but turn to 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1, starting with verse 17. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. As we know, when we talk to someone who may not be a Christian, there are many words that we use that sometimes the unbelieving world might squirm at, or they don't understand, or it doesn't make any difference to them at all. One is the cross, one is talking about Jesus, and even the word of forgiveness, if you think about it, the word forgiveness can mean two different things one for the Christian and one for the unbelieving world. And you can sometimes tell by their expression, their voice, the words that they use. You can tell by the look on their face of whether they are really sincere or not, or whether they really understand. And that's the connection that we Christians have is that of forgiveness and the cross and what they mean with each other. Let's look at another one. Ephesians chapter two, verse 16. About halfway down the list. Ephesians chapter two, verse 16. Start with 14. For he himself is our peace, talking about Jesus, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in his flesh the enmity, which is the law of the commandments contained in ordinances, so that in himself he might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. So we have that connection between the cross and forgiveness and what forgiveness means. One more, look at Colossians chapter two, starting with verse 13, chapter two. When you were dead in your transgressions, or your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He, Jesus, made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, all our sins, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of degrees against us by which was hostile to us, and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. We were members of a church one time out in Douglasville, and when it came to Good Friday, they had a service. And what was built was a cross that was made out of two-by-fours, and it was on a stand, and it was up by the front part of the church. And there were pieces of paper, and there were pencils in the pews, and the people were asked, if they would like to, to write on that piece of paper some sin that they'd been harboring inside that needed to be forgiven. folded it up, one by one if you wanted to, to come up there and nail that sin to the cross. Seeking that forgiveness that maybe you just couldn't find the will to do, but you did it on that good Friday. On Easter morning, that cross was standing outside the front door, clean as a whistle. You could see where the nail prints were, but the sins were gone. and that really left an impression on a lot of folks. It had meaning. That sin was gone because of the cross. Why then don't we just leave the cross out? Why not focus on the life of Jesus and his teaching rather than on his death? Why did Jesus have to die? The example that he has here, let's begin with an economic example. Imagine that someone borrows your car. As he backs out of the driveway, he strikes a gate, knocking it down along with part of a wall. Your property insurance doesn't cover the gate and the garden wall. What can you do? There are essentially two options. The first is to demand that he pay for the damages. The second is to refuse to let him pay anything. There may be also a middle of the road solution in which you both share the payment. Notice that in every option, the cost of the damage must be borne by someone. Either you or he absorbs the cost for the deed, but the debt does not somehow just vanish into thin air. Forgiveness in this illustration means bearing the cost for the misdeed of someone else, yourself. You are absorbing the cost of the damage that was done. That sound familiar of anybody? He has an illustration in here of, he was counseling a 16-year-old girl about anger she felt towards her father. We weren't getting anywhere until I said to her, your father has defeated you. As long as you hate him, you will stay trapped in your anger unless you forgive him thoroughly from the heart and begin to love him. Something thawed in her when she realized that. She went through the suffering of costly forgiveness, which at first always feels far worse than bitterness, even eventual freedom. Forgiveness must be granted before it can be felt. It does come eventually. It leads to a new peace. A resurrection is the only way to stop the spread of evil. We have a family member that we have had a disagreement with for probably 20 years. And it is something that Something had just happened, both sides. We have repeatedly confronted the situation, repeatedly have asked for forgiveness, but the person has denied that forgiveness. It's just like saying, I'm not gonna forgive you. Now, like this young teenage girl having a problem trying to forgive her father, and in a sense, her father is controlling her, this person within our family feels like that she is controlling the situation. She's in charge. She's in control. I'll forgive you if I want to or not. And it kind of puts herself up on a high podium. It's easy to judge that person and show her scripture about forgiveness, but then on the other hand, you have to be careful that you don't find yourself doing the same thing and harboring bitterness against her, against a family member. And then you find yourself in a vicious circle, around and around, someone trying to forgive someone else, and you can't. Well, then you harbor these bitter feelings. Then you need to go to the person, tell them that you're harboring these feelings, and it just goes around and around and around, until finally that forgiveness is finally given and accepted. It can be something that can gnaw at you for a long time. And there are some situations where people are such in a disagreement after 25, 30 years, they don't remember what their problem is. They just know they don't like you. A grudge. And it becomes bitterness. And whenever you see them, they let you know that they're still bitter at you. And it's a very hard feeling to carry and to have someone feel like that against you, especially when they would call themselves a Christian. Whenever this person would counsel forgiveness of people who have been harmed, they often ask about wrongdoers, shouldn't they be held accountable? I usually respond, yes, but only if you forgive them. The people that we forgive are the easy ones when they come to you and say, I am sorry for what I have done. Will you forgive me? I repent of my sin. Oh, well, yes, with a smile on your face. Those are the easy people to forgive. Even if it's a spouse. You know, those are the hardest people to try and forgive. because you see them every day. You walk by them in the house. You may share a bed. You don't share the same toothbrush, but you say, you know, the same dinner table, but still, you can still harbor some feelings in there to forget. Don't go to bed angry. The desire for vengeance, however, is motivated not by goodwill, but by ill will. You may say, I just want to hold them accountable, but your real motivation may be simply to see them hurt. If you are not confronting them for their sake or for society's sake, but for your own sake, it's just for payback. And the chance of the wrongdoer ever coming to repentance is virtually nil. So why did Jesus have to die? Couldn't God just forgive us? If we take the cross out of the situation, what does that do to Easter? What does that do to Good Friday? What does that do for somebody who loves you enough to die on a cross for what you have done to someone else and to him? The cross is simply a lovely example of sacrificial love, some may say. Throwing your life away needlessly is not admirable, it's wrong. Jesus' death was only a good example if it was more than just an example, if it was something absolutely necessary to rescue us, and it was. Why did Jesus have to die in order to forgive us? There was a debt to be paid. God himself paid it. There was a penalty to be born. God himself bore it. Forgiveness is always a form of costly suffering. When you have been hurt really bad and someone comes to you and asks for forgiveness, It's hard at that precise moment to say, yeah, I forgive you. Isn't there a part of us that says, I want revenge. I want you to suffer like I did. In the mid 1990s, a Protestant denomination held a theological conference in which one speaker said, I don't think we need a theory of atonement at all. I don't think we need folks hanging on crosses, blood dripping and weird stuff. Why can't we just concentrate on the teaching about God, how God is of love? The answer is that if you take away the cross, you don't have the God of love. Let's look at some other passages on there. Look underneath the column for forgiveness. Look at Matthew chapter six. Let's look at that one. Matthew chapter six, starting with verse 14. And it's interesting how Jesus follows these words that we're gonna read right after the Lord's prayer that he gives, teaching his disciples how to pray. And one of those key verses, in the Lord's prayer and forgive us our debts as we also forgiven our debtors. And Jesus follows up that point with these two verses more than any of the other verses, any other points in the Lord's prayer. Verse 14, for if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly father will also forgive you, but If you do not forgive others, then your father will not forgive your transgressions. That's a hard pill to swallow. Think about that one for a short time. It seems like we have a relationship that's here. A relationship between you and God. Because if you have a hard time going to God, confessing your sins, asking for forgiveness, and knowing that God forgives you for whatever you have done, past, present, and future, why do you have a hard time forgiving somebody else? These two verses are just as plain as rain outside. It's a relationship that we have with our heavenly father who forgives us for the things we've done wrong. I can remember a time when I was in high school, my dad asked me to do something and I didn't do it. And then he caught me going against what he had said. One, I was embarrassed. Two, I knew I was going to get beat to a pulp when I got home. But it was the hard part of going to my dad and asking him to forgive me for what I had done. The beating still came, but it was nice to get it off my chest, asking my dad to forgive me, and he gave that to me. and how reassuring that was as the beating came. But that was hard. It's that close relationship that we have with people around us that we see every day, parents, brothers, sisters, spouses. Sometimes those are the hardest people to try and forgive because we see them every day, see them a lot, talk to them on the phone, whatever. The people that we come in contact with for short periods of time, whether it's once or twice at work, somebody in the neighborhood, somebody at some community event we go to, whatever, yeah, you can forgive them. I'm not going to see them again. No big problem. But boy, those people that you come in contact with every day, every other day, that's a relationship. Those are hard. Forgiveness can be hard. Matthew chapter 18. Matthew chapter 18, verse 21. Then Peter said to him, Jesus, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven. Uh-oh. For this reason, the kingdom of heaven shall be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. And you know the rest of the parable that goes with that. Boy, but 70 times. How about just seven times? Just once? Can I forgive somebody just once? And then the next time I can beat them to a pulp? No. over and over and over again, just like our Heavenly Father over and over and over again forgives us, we do the same to those. I've never had anybody that sinned against that many times. Maybe you have. That's the same sin. Or maybe they just don't like you very well and they just want to do bodily verbal abuse or whatever towards you. You find yourself just walking in the opposite direction when you see them coming down the hallway or something. I'm just going to avoid them altogether. Maybe I won't get hurt. 70 times 7. Luke chapter 6. Verse 37, Luke chapter six, verse 37. Do not judge, and you will not be judged, and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Pardon or forgive, and you will be pardoned or forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return. Here's your example as a Christian, you yourself. If someone asks to be pardoned, pardon them. Don't hold it back. Or you may find yourself being controlled by them, not you. You're not in control. You think you might be, but you're not when you're holding back forgiveness that somebody has asked of you. Acts chapter 13. Acts chapter 13, starting with verse 36. For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep. and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay. But he whom God raised did not undergo decay. Therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. And through him, everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses. Jesus and his resurrection Rising from the dead, through him forgiveness is proclaimed to all people. The cross, forgiveness, how they tie together. Colossians chapter one. Colossians chapter one, verses 13, 14. And he, Jesus, rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins. We still have that correlation between what Jesus has rescued us from, which is eternal death. to His eternity with Him in heaven. Rescued us from darkness, transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, Jesus, in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins. Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four, starting with verse 29. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification, according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. That's our marching orders, so to speak. Forgive others as God has forgiven you. It was an interesting example of a story that was in here. I had never read the story before, but with the one, two, three paragraphs in there, now I've read the whole book. A great example of a kind of narrative is A Tale of Two Cities. Anybody read that in high school? Anybody? Well, I had a dumb high school. We didn't read that. It was all sports and girls and stuff, so we didn't have time for A Tale of Two Cities. Charles Darnay and Sidney Carton look very much alike and both love the same woman. See, I told you there's a woman in here. Lucy Manette. Lucy chooses and marries Charles, and they have a child. And setting of the story is the French Revolution. And Charles, who is a French aristocrat, is arrested, imprisoned, and sentenced to die by the guillotine. At the end of the novel, Sydney, who is English, visits Charles the night before he is to be executed. He offers to exchange places with him. Charles refuses, but Sydney has him drugged and smuggles him away in a waiting carriage. Then Sidney takes Charles' place. Charles and his family escape afterward to England. That night in the prison, a young seamstress, who is also condemned to die, comes up to Sidney and begins to converse with him, thinking him to be Charles Darnay. When she realizes that it is not him, her eyes widen and she asks, are you dying for him? Sidney responds, and his wife and child. Hush, yes. The seamstress then confesses that she is terribly frightened and is not sure she will be able to face her death. She asks the brave stranger if he will hold her hand to the end. When the time comes, they go to death hand in hand. She finds herself composed, even comforted and hopeful as long as she keeps her eyes on him. The girl in the story was sinking under the weight of her trial. Her strength was giving out, but then she was smitten by the wonder of this substitutionary sacrifice and enabled her to face the ultimate test. Someone died for someone else. the story of Easter and Good Friday. Moving, yes, but the gospel goes one better. These stories of sacrifice, very emotionally affecting. I came away from them resolving to live more courageously and unselfishly, the author says. I never did follow through on my resolutions, however. The stories moved my emotions and pricked my conscience, but my heart's basic patterns stayed intact. I was still driven by a need to prove myself to others, to win approval and acclaim, to control what people thought of me. As long as these fears and needs had such power over me, my intentions to change could not go very far. The gospel, however, is not just a moving fictional story about someone else. It is a true story about us. We are actually in it. To save us, Jesus gave up something infinitely greater than human celebrity. Also, Jesus has come to us in our prison, and despite our unwillingness to be saved, has taken our place. The seamstress was moved by a sacrifice that wasn't even for her. How much more can we be empowered by the discovery that Jesus has given himself for us? Have things changed places with us? I can only say that observing these stories from the outside stirred me. But when I realized I was actually inside Jesus' story and he inside mine, it changed me. The fear and pride that captured my heart was finally dislodged. The fact that Jesus had to die for me humbled me out of my pride. The fact that Jesus was glad to die for me assured me out of my fear. One more verse, Romans chapter 12. When you come to a point in your life and someone has wronged you, and you're not quite sure whether you can forgive them or not, this Bible passage just happened to be my devotion this morning, and I thought it was most fitting, so I thought I'd share it with you. Romans chapter 12, starting with verse 17. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Not us, but the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Someone who has wronged you and is hesitant or doesn't at all come to you asking for your forgiveness, repenting of what they have done. There's only really one thing you can do, is you can still say to that person, I forgive you. They may walk away thinking, for what? What have I done that has hurt them? That they're forgiving me. But it will take the pressure off you, off your mind, off your chest, knowing that you have forgiven them. whether they acknowledge it or not. That's a weight that can be lifted off of yourself, knowing that your Father in heaven forgives you because of what he has done for us on the cross through his son. Let's pray. Gracious Father, your cross for your son, the forgiveness for us, what a costly price that is really hard for us to really understand and comprehend. What agonizing pain it would have been for his mother and followers to be at the foot of the cross, seeing someone die who was innocent. Taking all our sins, taking them with him to the cross, being nailed to the cross, and our sins left there. forgiven and they are no more. We are not reminded of our sins of the past because of your promises to us. We thank you, Lord, for the remembrance of what forgiveness really means and the tie to the cross. Help us, Lord, when that time comes that we can be most gracious and loving to forgive others around us that have hurt us, knowing that you forgive us. In your precious name, amen.