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Well, let's turn to the Scriptures
again this morning, and I invite you to turn in your Bibles to
Luke chapter seven. I'm sorry, Luke chapter seventeen.
I'll refer to Luke seven in just a moment. Luke chapter seventeen is how
I will begin our Time together in the Scriptures that will have
several passages to consider will be the first six verses
that I will read now. You're hearing. We're continuing
in a series, a relatively short series. I intend on the principles
of peacemaking, how to be restored to a brother whom you've had
conflict become alienated from. We take up the subject of forgiveness
this morning. Again, reading at verse one,
Luke chapter seventeen. He said to his disciples, Temptations
to sin are sure to come. Woe to the one through whom they
come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung
around his neck and he were cast into the sea and that he should
cause one of these little ones to sin. Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke
him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven
times in the day and turns to you seven times, saying, I repent,
you must forgive him. The apostles said to the Lord,
increase our faith And the Lord said, if you have faith like
a grain of mustard seed, you could say this mulberry tree
be uprooted and planted in the sea. It would obey you. This is the word of God. Amen. What do you do if you're in an
argument? Something is said. You are wounded. But the one who said it very
quickly says, I'm sorry. What do you do? What do you do
if you go to your brother over something perhaps more substantial
than that and confront him with his sin? And he listens to you,
perhaps in multiple meetings, perhaps over a period of time,
but eventually he listens to you and he becomes persuaded
you are right. And he says to you, please forgive
me. What do you do if a person in
your life who has for a long time, maybe many years, created
unspeakable pain? And that person, entirely unsolicited
by you, comes to you and to your surprise says, I have wronged
you all these years. I desperately want you to forgive
me. What do you do? Well, the answer in each case
and a thousand other examples to be multiplied is, according
to our Lord, you forgive him. Genuine repentance and its partner,
true forgiveness, are the ultimate biblical resolution of every
conflict. Repentance and forgiveness. We need to take up this notion
of forgiveness this morning. As we do that, there's a great
deal of confusion we're going to need to sort through. Not just confusion that is part
of the culture in which they live, those outside of the church
and those who do not study the Scriptures, but it's also, unfortunately,
confusion that those who are students of the Bible have partaken
of. And so, I'm impressed with the
fact that I have a lot to say in a short amount of time on
a very vast subject. And as a matter of fact, the
very concept of forgiveness between brother and brother is one which
takes us into the very heart of the gospel. We are going to, in exploring
what it means for one man to forgive another man, find ourselves
taken into that sanctuary, if you will, of the most vital issues
of life. How we're saved. and more explicitly,
how we can ourselves become forgiven. So, here's how we'll spend our
time this morning. God willing, we'll look at the mystery of
forgiveness first, then the meaning of forgiveness, and lastly, the
method of seeking and granting forgiveness. What do I mean by
saying the mystery of forgiveness? Well, I want, before we go very
much further, to make very clear to you that it is something not
simple. It is something not easy to understand,
and far less is it easy to enact. This thing we call forgiveness.
And as a matter of fact, there's something, the more we think
of it, The challenges are understanding it is a mystery. One theologian wrote very contrary
to what I'm saying. Forgiveness on the part of one
person, one person towards another is the simplest of duties. Now, I'm not sure that's very
helpful. Because, in fact, in our thinking about it, as well
as as in our doing it, I think we're going to see it's not something
simple. It's something that can be quite
profoundly complex. It can be layered. It can take
multiple steps. It can take much time. Forgiveness
by one person to another person is, after all, to be patterned,
according to Scriptures, after the forgiveness that God has
granted to us in Christ. Ephesians 4.32 teaches us this,
as do other passages. That passage says, Be kind to
one another. tenderhearted, forgiving one
another as God in Christ forgave you. Now, what Ephesians 4 verse
32 is doing is telling us that when we take on the matter of
forgiving brothers, we're to be imitators of God in this way. And when we imitate God in forgiving,
we're imitating God in the most basic act of salvation. I want you to be gripped by that
this morning. We are carrying out, let me put it to you this
way, when we forgive another human being, we are reenacting
the gospel. We have the privilege of acting
like God as He has acted towards sinners and like children who
imitate their parents. watching what he does, and imitating
it. Here's how the Westminster Shorter
Catechism defines what is at the very heart of salvation,
God's act of justification. It says this, justification is
an act of God's free grace wherein He pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us as righteous
in His sight. Only for the righteousness of
Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone. There is a certain
sense, I say it to be somewhat provocative, to make you think,
to wake you up. There's a certain sense in which
we are called upon to justify one another just as God has justified
us. What in the world might I mean
by that? Justifying you, God has taken
your sin away. It's real. It's offensive to
him, but he's taken it away because of what Jesus has done. And he's
treated you as if you'd never sinned. And that's exactly what
you and I are to do. When Jesus says he repents, you
forgive him. You're to take that sin away
because of what Jesus has done, and you're to treat him as if
nothing had happened between you. Your relationship is clear.
There is a great mystery in that, brothers and sisters. We're not
just in this thing of forgiveness, as is often popularly presented
in our culture. We're not just accepting people
with their sin. We're not just saying, though
sometimes it's the way we try to express forgiveness. We're
not just saying, it's OK. Or, don't mention it. Or, I'm
OK. OK, we're OK. It's something
far deeper than that. It's something far more profound.
We are joining with our father in his view of our brother. And
we're saying, I'm not going to hold this against you any more
than my father in heaven holds this against you because of what
Jesus Christ has done. Christian forgiveness then involves
our acting towards our brothers. with an eye to how God has acted
towards us. And let me say that in many of
the little bumps and scrapes that happen within a community
of believers, the many lesser offenses, the profundity of what
you're doing when you say, it's OK, don't worry, may not sink
into you. And I'm not sure that it should
at every point. There should be a kind of easy
covering and granting of forgiveness when things are truly not great
offenses. They should have that readiness
and willingness as I've talked about in the past. But there
are other times when the offense goes so deep and has gone so
deep for so long that you, just in contemplating the demand to
forgive, will find yourself staggering under it and realizing this is
a mystery. What Jesus tells me to do is
a mystery. We're told the story of Corrie
ten Boom, who was with her family imprisoned during Nazi Germany,
during the war. For her and the family's aiding
of Jews to escape those who take their lives. She survived a concentration
camp, but her sister Betsy and her father did not. They did
not survive the abuse that came upon them in the hands of Germans,
German citizens acting as guards. Corrie ten Poum, as you are probably
aware, went on to have quite a ministry in writing and speaking
and speaking, among other things, about how love and forgiveness
can triumph. But she describes the occasion
when after speaking of these very things, a man approached
her. And as he approached her with
a smile on his face, with words of gratitude for what she'd said,
and words about how he had been forgiven, she recognized him. He was that man. He was the guard. of that particular concentration
camp and all the humiliation that she remembers and all the
physical abuse she remembered from that concentration camp
that she and her sister shared came flooding back her. And there's
the man professing now to be a child of God and having enjoyed
God's forgiveness. And when something like that
is your experience, then you realize, if you'd never before,
What an amazing thing it is that Jesus says, if your brother repents,
you forgive him. Corrie Ten Boom's testimony was
simply this. Jesus Christ had died for this
man. Was I going to ask for more? You might be here this morning
and you've suffered in quite prolonged and painful ways at
the hands of another brother or sister. And I am not going
to insult you this morning by saying that what Jesus says is
simple. What he calls you to do is not
easy. It is not simple. It may require
years for you to do. Indeed, we're going to open up
what it means now for you to do just that. What is the meaning,
secondly, of forgiveness? And here we're speaking of forgiveness
in its fullest and most formal sense. The Luke 17 kind of forgiveness. There has been engagement between
the one offended and the one who was the offender. And the offender has repented.
He's acknowledged his sin and he's come seeking forgiveness. In other words, there has been
dialogue between the two. This is not the case of the one
who's covering the sin of another without talking to him about
it. In this particular case, Luke 17, he's been confronted
and repents. And now the ball has gone back
into the court of the one who was offended. What does it mean
for Jesus to say, you forgive him? I want to ask that question.
And then I want to ask the question, what does it mean to say, I forgive
you? What does it mean to forgive
someone? Well, it means simply this. So, very complex in outworking
it. To remove an offense from between
you and a brother. That's what it means. To remove
an offense from between you and a brother. Now, we'll look at
some of the ways the Scripture develops that theme. Sometimes
the Scripture speaks of forgiveness just that way, in exactly those
terms. Psalm 103, verse 12. We're told,
as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our
transgression from us. That's speaking of God and his
forgiving of us. And it speaks of it as the sin
being removed so that it's no longer there. So, in that way
of speaking, that biblical way of speaking to forgive someone
is to act as if the sin hadn't happened. It's, as it were, right
there in your windshield. It's right there. It has happened.
But to forgive is to remove it from view and to act as if it
did not happen. To ask yourself the question,
how would we be, my brother and I, how would we be right now
if this had never happened? That's how I want to to act and
carry myself in the relationship. So sometimes the scripture speaks
of it. In terms of removing our transgression, it uses those
exact terms. Other times it conveys that thought by speaking of God,
not remembering our sins. Jeremiah 31 verse 34. He makes
this promise. I will forgive their iniquity
and I will remember their sin no more. If you've ever thought
about that way of speaking and thought about the attributes
of God, you might have wondered what way of speaking is this? Can God actually literally forget
things? Can they slip from his memory
like things often slip from our memories? No, and God is not
claiming that that's going to happen. God would not be all
knowing if that is what he was saying. What he is doing is saying
that in a relational way, I will not Take this up with you. And the context is particular.
The fact that God is the judge of all the earth and he is keeping
track of all that is done and he is going to bring it against
us in the last day for judgment, unless something happens, unless
he forgives us. And so when God says, I will
not remember your sin, what he's doing is saying he's making commitment.
I'm not going to bring this up against you. And this is not
going to be on my mind. when I relate to you, I'm not
going to view you with the anger and displeasure that would be
right if this were in my mind as I dealt with you. One other
way the Scripture speaks of this in opening up the meaning of
forgiveness is it speaks of it very frequently as canceling
a debt. Jesus in particular speaks this
way in the sermon On the mount in the Lord's Prayer, part of
that sermon, he tells us to pray, Lord, forgive us our debts as
we have forgiven our debtors. Now, that language of debt is
connected with forgiveness and forgiveness is spoken of as as
a canceling of debt. When someone offends you, they
owe you something. They're in your debt, as it were.
They or they deserve they. ill deserve your favor. They
deserve you to be alienated from them. But if you cancel the debt,
then you are forgiving in biblical terms. Luke seven is an example
of this. You might turn there with me.
Luke seven gives the account of Jesus eating at the home of
a Pharisee named Simon. This Pharisee has invited many
guests, but there's one particular person that comes that was not
invited. It's a woman of the city, is
the way it's put. A woman applying what's been
called the oldest profession in the world. It's not a woman
that would have normally been invited to respectable homes
for fellowship in the covenant. This woman comes and she comes
weeping with a bottle of ointment and anoints Jesus' feet, and
there's a bit of sniffing that goes on, and it's not smelling
the ointment, it's expressing objection. And Simon, who invited
Jesus, says to himself, these are his own thoughts going in
his own mind, verse 39, if this man were a prophet, he would
have known who and what sort of woman this is, is touching
him, for she is a sinner. And then, if you know the account,
Jesus says, I got to tell you something. It gives a very short
parable. Certain money lender had two
debtors, one owed five hundred and the other fifty. They could
not pay. He canceled the debt of both.
Now, which of them loved him more? Simon is the obvious answer. The one, I suppose, for whom
he canceled the larger debt. He says, you have judged rightly.
He then eventually says, after rebuking Simon for his very little attention to him,
he says in verse 46 or verse 47. Therefore, I tell you, her
sins, which are many, are forgiven for she loved much, but he was
forgiven little loves little. What I what I'm interested in
and you're seeing how Jesus compares forgiveness to canceling a debt.
That's how we unpack the idea of forgiveness. The one who's
forgiven much loves much. The one whose debt is great and
it's canceled, he or she loves the most. Dear ones, that's what
it means to forgive. These very biblical ideas come
together to mean simply to remove the sin of a brother from between
you. And that is what God does with us. So, what does it mean
for us to say, I forgive you? I hope it's clear by now that
there's a lot more weight that should be attached to those words
than we often do attach to them. What does it mean to say, I forgive
you? Well, it represents a promise, a commitment, a commitment that
is like the shadow commitment to God's own commitment in the
covenant. What does God promise us? The most precious promise, the
most basic promise in the covenant? What does he promise? To forgive
our sins, to not hold them against us. To not say in the last day,
have I got something against you? That's the most fundamental
promise that he makes in the covenant, not to remember to
blot them out, to put them away as far as east is from west.
And when you and I are called to say this and when we say it,
I forgive you. That's what we should. The intending
to say, I'm making a solemn promise to you. Now, that's been helpfully
opened up by men like Jay Adams. And they've said that promises
is threefold. It's a promise to one's self. It's a promise to the one who
offended you. And it's a promise not to bring
this matter up to anyone else. It's not just you and the other
person, but it's it's anyone else. You make a promise not
to bring the matter up to yourself. What you're saying is, I promise
I'm not going to dwell on this, just like God doesn't allow my
sins to destroy fellowship with him. I'm not going to let that
happen between you and me. I promise not to do that. I promise
not to dwell on this, to let it bother me. I promise to put
it out of my mind. That alone. is a breathtaking
thing to commit to. But you promise not to bring
it up to the person who has offended you. I'm not going to remind
you of this. I'm not going to get historical
with you, as it's sometimes put. Not hysterical. Historical. I'm
not going to come back to you and say, you've done that. You've
done this. You've done that. You've done
this. And those are all things that I said to you that I promised.
I'm not going to do that. And when I have opportunity to
speak of others or speak to others about you, I promise that I'm
not going to make this a matter that biases their opinion out
of malicious intent on my part. I promise that I will not do
that. Now, when I talk to you about saying I forgive you. As
a promise. You good Presbyterians ought
to have some bells go off, some little flags go up. And you want
to say, oh, wait a minute. We, especially in our tradition,
take promises very seriously. We realize that it is far worse
not to make a promise than to make it and be careless in the
fulfilling of it. Please ask these five five. It
is better that you should not vow. than that you should vow
and not pay. I said it without any hesitation.
It's better for you to sin by not forgiving than to sin by
not forgiving and yet promise to forgive. So when you say, I forgive you.
Know what you're doing, brothers and sisters, know that something
solemn is being enacted between you and another brother. Recognize
that the forgiveness that's being sought is something quite profound,
and this forgiveness that you extend is something quite profound. I'm going to pause for a minute
and ask a couple of questions before I move on to my third
point. I didn't know exactly where to put these questions,
but they may have arisen in your mind. I'm going to address them now.
One question in our little interlude is this. Can I forgive someone? And yet, still take certain actions
in response to their sin that will cost him something. I'll
tell you what I mean. Your teenage driver wrecks the
car for the fourth time, Dad. And there seems to be a pattern.
And he's been sorry every time. And as you've watched the insurance
bills coming in and you've speculated and project and so on, you're
coming to a white knuckle moment financially. And you simply say
your son, son, I forgive you. But I've got to ask for your
license. Is that possible? Or have I defined
forgiveness in such a way that makes that impossible or more
substantially, perhaps a man steals from his workplace? employers,
perhaps a Christian, and there's genuine reconciliation, true
repentance and genuine forgiveness. Is that employer obligated to
take no precautions with regard to that man's weakness? Is he
obligated to let him stay in that position of financial responsibility? A man is unfaithful to his wife.
Yes, the affair is painful and brings great trauma to the family,
yet he repents genuinely. Are there still consequences?
Does she still have the prerogative to fulfill what Jesus says is
her right to divorce? Would that be inconsistent with
forgiving? You can see how this is quite
a profound question. The answer to these questions,
if I consistently put them in the same way, is yes. Forgiveness
has to do with the putting away of sin between two people, but
there are still often inevitable consequences for the one who's
guilty. And I think we can see some biblical
examples of that. When Moses sins against the Lord,
he doesn't speak, but strikes the rock. And this is apparently
a manifestation of something in Moses heart that is greatly
displeasing to God. He says, Moses, you'll not enter
the land. You think that Moses died alienated from God? No,
no. Moses repented. I think we can
rightly say that. And God forgave him. But there
were still consequences. God was pleased to maintain an
effect. When David sins and is truly
repentant, writing Psalm 51 as one evidence of it, does he Become
alien from God the rest of his life? No, but God still brings
about consequences to his sin. And so it's very important when
we find ourselves in those kinds of situations to recognize a
couple of things. Brothers and sisters, the consequences
that may still accrue to one who's offended you. It may be
diverse, there may be many kinds of consequences, and you may
be in a position to allow some of those consequences still to
fall on them, but one of the consequences cannot be an alienation
between you and that person. That is not a legitimate consequence
of his sin. He repents. Yes, there may be
many things that will still come to pass, but one of them may
not be. as you forgive him, an alienation in the relationship
as one Christian to another. I want to say there are times
when it is your privilege to be in a position of deciding
whether the consequences of that person's sin will fall upon them
or not. And let me simply say there are
times When it is not inconsistent with good judgment and wisdom,
for you to allow those consequences to be suspended. It may be right,
maybe not after the fourth accident, maybe right after the first accident.
Son, I forgive you. Here's the keys. And when it is your wise prerogative
to do that, you are acting a lot like your father in heaven. Sometimes
he allows the consequences to stand, but many times does he
not choose to suspend the consequences altogether. And he says, in effect,
I forgive you and I'm not going to let what you deserve come
upon you. Another question that we ought
to ask at this point is, can we, should we forgive the non-Christian
who's offended us? Maybe this has already begun
to arise in Iran, because the way I've talked about the mystery
of forgiveness, Paul says to forgive one another as God in
Christ forgave you. That's the pattern in which you're
to forgive one another. Well, can we do that with someone
who's not in Christ? Can we forgive someone who does
not claim the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior and who is not
following him in obedience? Can we forgive? Well, Listen
carefully. In the sense that many speak
of forgiveness, that probably many of you have used the word
that simply of no longer being bitter. In the sense that many
of us properly have spoken of forgiveness, that is putting
aside a grudge, letting your anger go. and putting its place,
love and compassion and mercy. That's how forgiveness is often
defined. And if that's the way you speak of forgiveness, yes,
you certainly can forgive someone who is not in Christ, who's not
a brother. Jesus said, love your enemies,
pray for those who persecute you. You have a wicked uncle. or some such person who has lived
a profane life and has caused you untold misery. Are you right to be embittered
towards Him? No. Must you come to love Him and
pray for Him? Yes. Must you surrender these
issues to the Lord because He alone can judge? Yes. And so, I say that because of
the way we often think of forgiveness. But I hope you'll see that I've
defined forgiveness in even more careful terms and the strict
sense of the word in the way that the scripture speaks of
forgiveness in the most profound sense of the word. We cannot
forgive those. Whom God has not forgiven. I hope by now you can
understand why I would say that. Remember what the promise of
forgiveness means. It's a commitment not to bring it up to yourself
to the person to anyone else. Now, how would you square that
kind of forgiveness with some of the Psalms of David, for example?
He prays that God would bring his judgment upon those who are
the enemies of the church. Doesn't sound like he's made
any commitments not to bring up their offenses, does it? And
Jesus, in a similar way, identifies those who are setting themselves
against him and speaks of them in a condemning way. recognizing
he is not forgiven in the fullest biblical sense of the word. How
should we then respond to those? Well, I've already said you should
love them and you should desire to see them forgiven so that
you may join in God's own forgiveness of them. That's how Jesus models
for us our response to our enemies. Yes, he's severe, but in the
same person, He says, as they nail him to the cross, Father,
forgive them. That's a prayer. It expresses
a desire. Lord, I want you to forgive them. I think implicit in that is Jesus
will, as shall we, follow with our father's lead and forgive
all those that God in Christ has forgiven. These are not easy
questions, but I take them up because they're important. Let's
conclude our third point. By looking at the method, we
looked at the mystery and the meaning of forgiveness. Let's
look at the method and I'm going to divide the congregation, but
only in a theoretical way, because all of you will be in both sides
of this. I want to divide you between those in the position
of seeking forgiveness and then those in the position of extending
forgiveness. And I want to speak about the
method, brothers and sisters, for all the mystery of it, there
is a right way to do it. And there is a way to mess it
up. And so, let me give you some brief words of exhortation about
how you go about first seeking forgiveness. Brothers and sisters,
when you have to seek forgiveness, when you're the one who's seeking
it, in light of all that I've said about what it means, then you go to your brother and
seek that forgiveness humbly. Recognizing it is a mercy, not
a right. You go humbly. You go asking
for forgiveness. Recognizing what it is that you're
asking your brother to do. And recognizing that it's not
something you deserve. If you go seeking forgiveness,
thinking little of what it will involve for that brother to forgive
you, then you will, even as you ask for forgiveness, insult him
and offend him more. If you go asking for forgiveness,
clearly implying in your words or in your manner that, hey,
you're supposed to do this, so I already know the answer, so
when are you going to do it? You will damage the relationship.
You lack the part of a fool. It means that as you go seeking
forgiveness, you'll go in a timely way. You'll recognize that there
are moments to ask for it and there are moments not to ask
for it. You'll go asking for forgiveness
and willing, for example, to give the brother time to respond
to your request. You'll recognize that just like
sin is multiple layers and you can repent of sin at one layer,
but like an onion, there's a lot of other layers. So forgiveness
can have multiple layers. Have you encountered this already?
And sometimes it's a process of repenting and forgiving and
and realizing more the nature of your sin and repenting for
that layer and forgiving at that layer. That's what I mean by
this process being quite complex. How many of you have have found
yourself thinking all over again about something you did that
offended God and you've realized a whole other layer of it? You realize in the times past
as you thought of that, you've had such trivial views of your
sin as you go back to him for forgiveness. Is that wrong? Well,
no, it's not wrong. Strictly speaking, you didn't
go to him for that level. Of repentance and forgiveness.
So, you recognize that as your awareness grows, so may his forgiveness
need to grow. For those of you who are seeking
forgiveness, let me say, you go ready to take whatever measures
are necessary to demonstrate the genuineness of your repentance.
It is one of the cruelest swindles to perpetrate on one another
to seek forgiveness without real repentance, especially if you've been guilty
of a long pattern of sin. And there have been many apologies,
a rather inferior word, by the way, for the biblical notion
of forgiveness and repentance. You assume the burden, brothers
and sisters, of demonstrating your repentance As soon as you
say, I'm sorry, you're professing your repentance that puts your
brother in the position inevitably of saying, is he being real? Do you really understand? Don't let the burden fall on
that person to make that assessment. You do whatever is necessary
to demonstrate the genuineness of your repentance. Take extreme
measures. Extreme measures are called for.
Pursue the person you offended. Seek to be restored in the relationship. Don't simply let it all be verbal. Demonstrate the genuineness of
your repentance by pursuing Him and the relationship. If you
don't do these things, you'll just lead your brother into sin
himself. You've sinned against him and
now you're asking him to make a commitment apart from real
evidence that you are repentant. And that's a commitment he'll
probably break if he has doubts about your repentance. Those
of you in the position of seeking forgiveness, you seek it humbly. Give the brother time. Recognize
multiple layers, both repentance and forgiveness, and take measures,
whatever are necessary, to demonstrate the reality of your repentance. And I'll make my final note,
focusing on those who are in the position of extending forgiveness,
like Luke 17 envisions us to be in. He sins against you seven
times in the day and turns to you seven times saying, I repent. You must forgive him. I want
to end on this note, the tremendous, staggering responsibility Jesus
places on us. He tells us that we are not,
in effect, to bear false witness. We're not to lie. When we say,
I forgive you, you say that. You follow through with what
you've committed. In another place, Matthew 18,
after telling another rather sobering story, he says, God
will punish you like the king in his story if you don't forgive
your brother from the heart. Jesus knows about verbal forgiveness
and heartfelt forgiveness. Brother, if you are being approached
for forgiveness, it would be better for you If you recognize
how much the bitterness has taken hold in your heart, it would
be better for you to say, can I have a little time? Give me
a little bit of time. I can't commit to this just yet. I know I should. I can't commit
to this yet because I know I can't yet say I won't bring this up
to myself, to others or to you. Better to ask for that time.
It'd be better for you to say, look, I want to believe you. And I want to forgive you, but
we need to spend some more time, because I need to be honest with
you, I don't believe that you're really repentant. I need to work
with you on this relationship, and I need to see in you the
same sense of your sin that I have of it. Recognize you who have
been tasked with forgiving. When you do close with a person
and you forgive him or her, you're taking up a long term obligation.
You have your work cut out for you. You have your work cut out
for you. Ken Sandy does a good job in
coaching you in that area. His book, The Peacemaker. He
says you need to take up the replacement principle. We've
talked about this before. You've got many bitter thoughts
towards that person, but he's confessed his sin. You've committed
to forgive him. The bitter thoughts come back
to you. You allow them to dwell in your mind. You're breaking
your promise. What will you do? Well, you'll follow Philippians
4. You'll think of what things are
pure and good and specifically what things you can think about
that person. that are pure, that are good, etc. You'll replace
the bitter thoughts with good thoughts of that person. You'll
seek to have that person's name and personality trigger in your
mind, after much disciplined thought, good things, not old,
bitter things. But, pastor, you say, what do
I do if I have been failing? for a long time to keep this
promise to forgive. What do I do? I'm breaking this promise left
and right. I've said I'd forgive. I know I'm responsible to, but
I have failed. Or you do. I think what the Lord Jesus would
first tell you to do is to reflect upon the nature of God's forgiveness of you. I think that's where he would begin.
Has God said to you, you've reached the limit. You've asked forgiveness
one too many times. Has God ever said to you, even
as we confessed our sins this morning, I think I need you to
do a few things to prove to me that you're not going to do this
again, because I'm tired of this. I'm just fed up with this. You
know, you confess the same thing to me over and over and over
again. Next time you ask for forgiveness, I want to guarantee
it's not going to happen again. Is that how God does? No. Praise be to God. That isn't how He does it with
us. Think on the nature of God's forgiveness. Think upon the sin
of not forgiving. You see, the offense was against
you. But now, what should be your
primary concern is the sin of your own heart in not forgiving. Why, I think, in part at least,
the apostles say to the Lord after he says these things, Lord,
increase our faith. Who can do this? You become absorbed,
not with that person's sin, but your sin of failing to open your
heart towards that person as God has opened his heart to you.
And you seek nothing less than the power of God to change your
heart. You pray about it. And you start
doing what is forgiving. Pray that He will change your
heart. And as you seek to do what is forgiving, you, you who've
been offended, you who've been asked for forgiveness, you who
are in the position of extending forgiveness, you, you are in
a beautiful position. to look like God. Because as
you forgive, and not only forgive, not only remove the sin from
between you and your brother, but even begin to be the pursuer
of the one who sinned against you, nothing you could do could
make you more Godly, God-like, more like your Father. But not
only to forgive, we're not just justified but also reconciled,
sanctified, glorified. You who have been offended, you
extend forgiveness, and then you be the pursuer of the relationship
that you might be sons of your Father in Heaven. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, when we are tempted to
count our brother's offenses against
us, we pray that you would sweetly, but sternly, direct us to the
fact that we can't count our offenses to you. Seven? Seven
times seventy? To be sure, O Lord, we've committed
that many sins just in the span of a week against you. Forgive
us, we pray, for our closed hearts to our brothers. Cause us, we
pray, to love the gospel, to understand it, to be more deeply
affected by it, to be like the one woman She lived and was not
a part of a parable who wept at Jesus' feet, thought of how
much she'd been forgiven. Make us like that woman, we pray.
And we ask that we would be thereby so humbled by your forgiveness
of us that it even comes readily to us to forgive those who sought
to kill us. Everything up to that. Father,
we thank you for everything that has been brought to our minds
again about how much you love us this morning, how indeed fully
you have put our sins away. Thank you, Lord, that East and
West are a long way apart and our sins are a long way from
us. this hour. We thank you for these blessings.
Help us to live like we understand them and love them. We pray this
in Jesus' name. Amen.
If Your Brother Repents, Forgive Him
Series Principles of Peacemaking
| Sermon ID | 6140519824 |
| Duration | 49:46 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Language | English |
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