Now, we're in Luke 17, and I'm going to read the first 10 verses, and we're going to talk through this. I have a time limit, and then we'll start singing while I put on my Superman outfit and get ready to baptize. And so Luke 17, we'll begin reading verse 1. He said to his disciples, it is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they come. Did I mess something up already, brother? Okay. It would be better, verse 2, for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. I preached on this twice this morning, so I don't think we need to talk about these verses. But verse 3, take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, seven times in a day returns to you saying, I repent, you shall forgive him. Verse five, the disciples said to the Lord, increase our faith. Now this is specifically placed the way that it is, where it is, by Luke to teach us something literarily. In other words, as a piece of literature. It's placed here because what Jesus just told the disciples to do is really hard. It takes faith. It takes a lot of faith to allow someone to potentially abuse your forgiveness. It takes a lot of faith to enter into a relationship with God whereby you are consistently allowing people to potentially do things to you only for them to come back to you and say, I'm sorry. Now there's a lot of problems with that whole I'm sorry thing. For the first thing is that it's not actually a real apology. I'm sorry that you have speed limits on McDonald Parkway. I'm sorry that you have to pay taxes for the rest of your life on property that you own. Anyone else sorry about that? You pay off your home and you get to still pay taxes on something you've worked hard to pay off. I'm sorry about a lot of things, but I'm not accepting guilt for it. That's not what I'm sorry means. And I'm afraid that we're poor about admission of guilt. And then once we decide that we've actually been guilty of something, to say it in biblical terms. So we get to the end of verse 4, and the disciples have heard difficult things, and how do they respond? The apostles said to the Lord increase our faith. Now I have two ideas why in verse 1 it calls them disciples and in verse 5 it calls them apostles. I have a couple of ideas. One of them is really deep and I will say it in about 30 seconds and if you don't catch it just let it go. And that is like this. Luke got his material from different sources. He told us that. I'm not saying that. I'm not a liberal. I'm not a higher critic. He told us that he got his information from people that wrote Gospels before him. I suspect that the easiest explanation for why they're called disciples in verse 1 and why they're called Apostles in verse 5 is because he got his information verses 1 through 4 from one source and his sort in his stuff in versus his stuff his material in verses 5 through 10 from another source and One source called the 12 disciples, the other source called the 12 apostles. That's the easiest explanation. I think there's maybe one that might work better for us. And that is this, that the disciples refers to the larger group of 70 that he sent out in chapter 10, and the apostles refers to the smaller group of 12. The reason why that might be a good explanation is because the only one of the four gospel writers that refers to the larger body of 70 disciples is Luke. So that's believable. Alright, that's just really technical and may not change your life. but it may help you feel like you know a little bit more about this passage. Then in verse 6, in answer to their request, Lord increase our faith, and again, why would they need an increase of faith? Because if you are going to be a part of anything in this life, you should, just right now, resign yourself to the fact there shall be drama. There will be someone, somewhere, somehow that doesn't like you all the way. And it has nothing to do with you or them. Just something was said once or a text that wasn't replied to fast enough or you didn't come to my baby's birthday party. It can be any number of a hundred different things at any given time. And we typically think people have something against us. They don't. They haven't even thought about us today. Now that's a bother too, isn't it? Here I am hurting and they never even thought about it. So we are pretty easy to offend, but this is a clear-cut thing where scripture says that you have been, no kidding, offended. You have been bothered. Someone has, how can we say, rained on your parade, stomped in your cornflakes. Verses 3 and 4 does use the word sin. Not offense. This is not, oh, you were tripped over on your way to following Jesus. This is something more overt. This is someone has actually sinned. That means that they have done something that is against God's will, and therefore, they have done something wrong in God's book. and they come to you after you accuse them, you rebuke them. How's that for a strong word? And there's no way to soften that up, brothers and sisters. It sure would be nice. In fact, I have an author down in my office who wrote a great book on peacemaking, and he talks about how this is just one of the methods you can use, rebuke. That sounds great, but Luke didn't know that apparently when he wrote this. He says that the way you deal with people who sin against you is that you rebuke them. Wow. So this is not one of those little typical tiny ticking off offenses. This is not one of those things where you feel offended. Remember, we've spent enough time tonight talking about how there is a difference between being offended and being sinned against. Offense is in verses 1 and 2. That's what we're being cautioned against doing. Sin is in verses 3 and 4. That's what we're being told how to handle it. As a matter of fact, these verses seem to not really fit together. They really get a lot of commentators and pastors struggling. Listen to this guy. Four sets of sayings are combined here between verses 1 and 10, and they have no obvious relationship to one another. Well, he makes his living writing books. He's a really well-known seminary professor in Louisville named Schreiner. I have all kinds of respect for this guy. In fact, I follow him on Twitter. Are you impressed? And yet he sees no connection between these verses. And I say to you that the connection is Jesus Christ has required something of us in verses 3 and 4. That is very hard. And you might be asking, how do I protect myself from an abusive relationship where the abuser thinks that the fix or the solution to everything is quickly saying, sorry. Well, that's a valid question. And that is why the disciples or the apostles, depending on if it's the 10 or really the 12 or the 70 said, we need more faith to do this. Verse five. So the Lord begins in verse six and says, if you have the faith as the mustard seed here, here's where my mind starts going. Now he's about to talk about me pitching a mountain into the sea. Nobody does something only Luke does. He says something different. If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, you might have sycamine or sycamore tree. The New King James says mulberry tree. You can say to it, be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea. Or if you're from Wisconsin or Iowa, you say roots. How many of you are from the Midwest and you say roots? All right. Some of us are right. Yes, dear sister. My first wife. I'm so thankful for her. Alright, so, says in verse number 7, which of you having a, verse number 6, you say, if you have faith as a mustard seed, which is very small, you can say to this mulberry tree, which is probably by comparison very big, All right, be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea and it would obey you. There's two miracles, miracles, two miracles here that you should consider. Number one, Nikki, you've got to stop laughing at me. I won't be able to make it through this message. Woman, my wife is causing me to stumble. We won't say anything about, we won't say anything about millstones. I won't do it. I won't say anything about this morning's message. There's two miracles, woman, in this verse. One of them is that by speaking, you can uproot a sycamore tree. And the other is that by speaking, you can plant it in the sea. Now, you should know, probably, that Jesus... Now, please don't throw anything. You're welcome to disagree with me, but let's be civil. I don't think that Jesus intends on us to put this to the task. Jesus has twice already in the last two chapters used hyperbolic, hyperbolic language to talk about things that are huge, immense, they're figures of speech. The first one is when he says in chapter 16 verse 17, heaven and earth will pass away before my law passes away. Something enormous that you can't expect until a certain time in history, so you can't expect it today, heaven and earth falling out of space. And then there's the second thing that Jesus talks about. We mentioned it this morning. He doesn't expect anyone to actually be able to lift a millstone to get it around their neck, much less put it on their neck. So here, I don't think we're supposed to leave the building literally thinking, all I have to do is name it and claim it. Speak it word of faith. Say it and you shall have it. Life and death is in the power of the tongue. And he is still, I'm talking about that guy in Texas, he is still speaking COVID-19 out of the borders. He's rebuked it now nine weeks ago. And it hasn't listened to him. So if we're talking here specifically about the power of us to be able to speak things May God help us to see that if you want to go out and make a tree jump out of your yard and land and plant itself in Lake Hickory call me first So it's it's in other words. Jesus is saying you can forgive a lot of times if you have this much faith the context right And then he tells a parable that does seem like it doesn't belong in the flow of context I mean, I'll admit it. It seems like it doesn't but then we see in verse 7 Which of you having a servant plowing or tending sheep will say to him when he has come in from the field Come at once and sit down to eat But will he not rather say to him? Prepare something for my supper and gird yourself and serve me till I've eaten and drunk and afterward you will eat and drink and Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded of him? And I know some of your Bible versions don't have the next phrase in it, but the New King James does. Jesus answers his own question and says, I think not. I think the King James has it as well. Verse 10. So Jesus is about to summarize this parable, Luke 17, 6-10. He says this, so likewise, Alright, so, picture yourself working out in the field, doing whatever you do in the field, you can tell I've spent a lot of time in the field, you work all day for the master, you come in, it's 4.30, you're sweating, you have worked very hard, and you're thinking, at least the guy could do is say, shower up, take it easy, I made Louie make supper tonight. Maybe he would say, you sit, I'll serve you. And he said, Jesus said, do you think that the master would say that? No, no. And so he sums it up in verse 10 by saying this. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which are commanded, say this, we are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do. This is really the beauty of verse-by-verse teaching and preaching of the Word. It's not because I'm doing it, it's because, in theory, it's easy to do. You just go to the next verses. And you go to the next verses with a presupposition that the Lord put them in the order they belonged in. And if I wanted to, I could mislead you into many doctrines if you were unwitting people, which you are not. You know your Bibles, many of you, very well, and I couldn't fool you. But if I wanted to be crafty, and if you were ignorant, neither of which are true. You are neither ignorant and I am not crafty. I could mislead you into so many strange teachings by grabbing four or five verses from different parts of the Bible and whipping them out at you three times a week. But you and I both know that doesn't feed the soul. The feeding of the Word of God is what keeps us wanting more. It's so unique that it builds churches. It's so unique that it makes us strong. It's so unique that it causes our souls to be continually changed. So having said all of that, What is Jesus giving the parable for on the end of this issue of offenses sin Forgiveness the faith to do it why this parable I want you to notice two words put them together with me verse number four Jesus says if he sins against you seven times in a day and seven times in a day returns to you saying I repent You shall forgive him Now that is not Like Jesus speaking out of His foreknowledge? He's not predicting the future here. He's not saying, this is what you're going to do. I can see it in my foreknowledgeness. No, this is a command. This is an imperative. As a matter of fact, friends, this is only the second thing in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus commands us to do. Here we are, 17 chapters into the gospel of Luke, and this is only the second thing that Jesus has told us we must do. Take that in. If the pastor is telling the truth, that is phenomenal. Think about that. Well, what's the first thing? Let's take a look at chapter 10. Look at chapter 10 with me, please. Chapter number 10 of Luke. If you're joining us late on the webcast, do not adjust that television set. We preach first, we're singing second tonight, so that we can baptize at the end of the service and allow Pastor Zach and his folks to come be with us. Verse 27. Jesus answered forgive me the young man the certain lawyer answered and said you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart all your soul all your strength with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself and Jesus said to him you have answered rightly do this and You will live This is the first and only other time so far in the gospel of Luke where Jesus requires something from his disciples. And look how lofty it is. You have to love God with every part of you. Now I'm not trying necessarily to say that this is a way in which you love God as tonight's passage. That would be approaching the passage in a less direct manner than I want to be. What I want you to see is that this first and greatest commandment of Luke 10.27 is very important. Everyone would say it's important because if it's not obeyed, it gives birth to all other sins because all other sins come from idolatry. And if it's true that all other sins come from having an idolatrous heart, then that means that loving the Lord our God is the only safeguard against idolatry. Loving Him with all that we are, and all that we have, and all that you and I is. How's that for subject-verb connection? That is the only safeguard towards a life that displeases the Lord. Without loving God with all of our being, we become idol-making factories. So, as we go back to chapter 17 and verse 3, we're confronted with the gravity of being told that we must do something. Verse number four, he sins against you seven times in a day and seven times in a day returns to you saying, I repent, you shall forgive him. All right, simple enough. James, do we have our slides up there, brother? If they, if we do, they shall appear. So, uh, you might notice here that we are being told we must do something. This word shall is very important. It has the idea that it is required. And I want to say it again. Those are our four stops on the bus tonight. I want to say again, it's very important. I might be covering one of them right now. There is only two things required of us in 17 chapters so far and and and one of them is that we love God with all of us and the other thing is so important that It is a must. It has to happen. Now this is really huge. So, having said all that, I hope you can see the contextual connection between this command and the parable. Because you shall do something is a command, and the parable ends with, you are unprofitable in doing all of your forgiving. Because it was your duty. The flow of the context requires, I know, just like my Bible publisher breaks the paragraph and gives it a nice new crisp title that ruins the flow of thought, the disciples are having their request for faith submitted to the Lord because He has required something immense to them. Forgive people that repent, even if they do it, and then here's another hyperbole, seven times a day. Do you think the Lord uses figures of speech? Apparently, because three times in this passage he uses a figure of speech if I'm right. The millstone that you can't lift, it's better for you to put it around your neck. The idea that someone can seven times in a day rightly repent. That's difficult because If they legitimately and sincerely repent, which is implied in the word returns to you in verse 4, and the word repent means change of mind, it means to think again, metanoia, to think again, I repent, you shall forgive him. There's very little chance that someone is going to sin against you and seven times in the same day have a change of heart about it. So Jesus is going to the nth degree to impose upon us an impossible task based on hyperbole. In other words, hey, I got this thing. It's a big rock. No one can lift it. And so Jesus says, if you have just a little faith, you can forgive the person. And he says, and after you've done that, you are to be likened to a person who has spent all day in the field and comes in and is expected to then serve his master dinner. We should expect it because it's our duty to do. It doesn't make us, oh my, I hope we can get this. It does not make us super Christians to forgive people. We are still unprofitable servants. Well, you don't know what they did to me. Hush. Look at that through the lens of Calvary and tell me you have anything to say. That is a beginner's Christian rebuttal to this. When we look at this through the lens of Calvary, we have nothing to say other than, I have sinned against God seven times before breakfast and he finds a means to forgive me. And so when we do merely what the Master requires of us, verses 6 through 7 through 10, the Lord says, you've done what you were supposed to do. Can you see the flow of thought? All right, well, let me stop right there and ask, does anyone have any questions or comments? If I wouldn't get so serious, you'd feel freer about talking. What'd you say? Yeah, did you know I could drum? Let's talk about number one first. The likelihood of repentance from the person who hurts you. The likelihood of repentance from the person who hurts you. Alright, let's talk for a minute. Everyone wants people to be sorry for the stupid things they do. But nobody wants to biblically rebuke someone else to get it done. Look at the verses, verses 3 and 4. You should not think that it's likely that someone will repent if it's not likely that you'll rebuke them. Isn't that what it says? So we got this whole, I don't want to cause any trouble, that's never worked before, I don't like making waves. No, you just want to leave the marriage, leave the church, leave your friendships, leave your job. You want a life full of that? No, I don't want that for you either. And I don't want it for me. I don't want to be caught in a weak moment where I decide that I'm going to hightail out of everything because I'm just not up to having a conflict. And by the way, it doesn't say here that you can't involve wise spiritual people in your conflict resolution plan. But one thing you're not going to get out of is your responsibility and my responsibility to go to the person who has sinned, not offended, sinned. Hamartias. They have sinned against us. They have broken God's law and did it to us. We should not expect that they will repent until we rebuke them. And what does rebuke mean? Does it mean to take off your thin leather glove and back them with it? I wish it did. Except when I'm the one who sinned against you. See, here's the thing. If you sin against me, I want it to be that I can backhand you like Bugs Bunny did with a metal glove. But when I sin against you, I want you to use velvet. We're quick to require judgment out of others and quick to require mercy when it's us, right? I don't know if you have that thing, but I do. I want everyone to be very understanding of me and my shortcomings while I assume the very worst of them when they sin against me. So rebuking need not imply that we're hostile in the way that we do it. A rebuke is a correction. A rebuke is going to someone and saying, listen, we got to come to terms about something that you did to me, you may not have meant to. And I'm not angry with you, but we have to talk about something. That's number one. Before I go on, because of time, nothing up on the slide is sacred, certainly not Bill the drummer, so who has a comment or a request for clarity? Anyone? Okay, easy crowd. There's nothing deep about this. You started off very well. You displayed the courage to approach someone that caused you to stumble. You rebuked him or her. He or she then exhibited the courage and the maturity to repent. So far, so good. Repentance is more than saying, I repent. Jesus is trying to get us to see here that someone in fact did repent. They turned to you from the sin that they sinned against you. This is so unlikely that someone will do this to you seven times in a day. And this is not some kind of sermon that you should stay in a physically or mentally abusive relationship. This is saying that you do have responsibility in this matter. Let me talk to you for just a second. If someone sinned against you and it is a crime, you have a responsibility for the sake of all that is right and godly in Christian stewardship. to report them to the police. There's nothing virtuous about covering up sexual assault. There's nothing virtuous about covering up negligence. We're not talking about criminal activity. We're talking about personal conflict. So In case you were wondering, that's way outside the scope of this passage. For you to let someone off the hook for something that they should go to jail for, okay? It is an insult to the gospel for us to not hold people accountable before the law. You should be saying, Can I hear one person say that? Huh. It's an insult to the gospel because if people have a cheapened value of judgment from our judicial system, they have a cheaper assessment of the justice of God. And if they have a cheaper... And if they have a cheaper or reduced assessment... Do I need to go Bob Barker or is that Satan? Satan in the wavelength? Who knows? He's causing me to stumble. Anyway, if we reduce the standard of God's justice, then eventually we have to admit, by consequence, that Jesus really didn't die for much. His death wasn't required. God just went overboard. We owed $7 and God paid a million on the tab. It's not that way. So we actually draw people closer to the potential for forgiveness through the gospel when we hold them accountable. When you have a society full of people who don't think they're guilty of anything, you have a society of people who definitely don't think that they need a savior. Number next. Other motives besides hurt. And that, I guess I'm talking about it already. So you have a good thing going. The person who has sinned against you is ready to repent and you have been given a command to forgive. Easy day. That's why we need faith, verse 5. But here's where we find out our motive for confronting someone with their sin. All right. If you can get over it, ask yourself if you can just get over it. They sin against you and you're like, I can get over it. It's no problem. I mean, we're going to be pals again Sunday. It'll be fine. When I see him Tuesday night in ministry meeting, we'll be fine. When I see him at Friday night committee meeting, we'll be fine. When I see that brother at the workplace tomorrow, we'll be fine. Okay, alright, so you don't feel like you're offended enough, you're not aggravated enough, you're not irritated enough, and so you don't feel like you have to rebuke them because you don't really want to hear their repentance again. So here's where we find out our motive for confronting someone with correction. If you can get over it, ask yourself if you care about their forgiveness. Once you're willing to suffer the wrong, consider the person's discipleship before God. Because if you rebuke someone for doing wrong, you are giving them the tools to get it right. And if you give them the tools, if you give me the tools to make something right with you, Ronnie, then that means I have to consider the fact that I was legitimately wrong. And now, if I did this to you, I may have a greater understanding of what I've done to God. Now, here's some Old Testament stories. How about Joseph? Potiphar's wife tempts him, Genesis 39. She wants to get him in the bed, right? And he says what? Well, what happens if the boss finds out? Is that what he says? What happens if there's a predator drone overhead and they've got a heat signature on both of us in the bedroom? Is that what he says? No, he says, how can I do this horrible thing to God? And so when we are not hurt, we don't feel aggravated, irritated, nauseated. We don't feel assaulted. We still go through the discipline of rebuking someone because we want them to grow in their walk with Christ. How many of you think that a person who sins against you sins only against you? Is it possible that Bill Sturm has a personality flaw that he's blind to? Come on friends, be bold. Sure, sure. Is it possible that one of you should be correcting me? Is it possible that if you don't, I will continue to sin against people in that same manner? Don't you care about me as your brother in Christ to bring that to my attention? So that I don't continue to add sin to my account? So this is more than, did your feelings get hurt? This is, do you care about the person's soul? Any questions or comments on that? We already talked about number three. Let's talk about Bill the drummer. Alright. Alright. So, there are some things that haven't been said in this passage. Like, you know, what do we do if the person doesn't say I repent even after I forgive them? What if they tell me to jump in a lake or other things and they make references to my ancestry and so forth? Your mama jokes is what I'm saying, right? What happens if that happens? Okay, so we're talking about this. Now, how many of you, we're not that hip because we have electric drums. Back in the day, before drums were acceptable, There was a time when that was the symbol of Satan. How many of you remember that? Were you raised in a church where that was just the symbol of all things ungodly? I may have been in such a church growing up, maybe. But this is electric. Now, if you want to use regular acoustic drums, you can just knock the fire out of them, which I think was the way the Lord intended. Then, and you want to buffer the sound a little bit, what do you put around it? A cage of some kind. I like that. That sounds better. It's a little wimpier to say it the way I was gonna say it. Plexiglass, right? Gonna look it through the plexiglass, huh? Yeah, some form of enclosure. That's even a little bit... That makes me sound a little bit... That's like saying instead of his name being Sheila, it's Shalaa. That makes me sound a little bit more manly. That's cool. Alright, so... You know, so I'm sitting behind the drums, and I want you to consider that as you look around at the world of offenses, you are going to say that this plexiglass thing in front of you, this cage, this enclosure of some kind, is a kind of a lens through which you see the rest of Luke's teaching concerning forgiveness. Okay. Let's be honest, if you haven't been sinned against today, tomorrow's coming, right? So let's talk about this a little bit. We have a few more minutes and I want to use them wisely. Okay, so take a look back at chapter 11. Take a look back at chapter 11 and look at the beginning verses. Chapter 11, verse number 1. It came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, that one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. So he said to them, when you pray, say, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins. For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Okay, so let's talk about that a minute, just for a minute. What is the prayer praying for in the line, forgive us our sins? This isn't rocket surgery, there's no tricks here. What is he praying for, or she? Praying for forgiveness, thank you. And the idea here in verse number four, forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who's indebted to us. The implication here is that we are forgiving people who are asking for it from us. And that is why we, when we ask God for it, we expect to be forgiven. The implication here is that people are always asking us for forgiveness, like we're always asking the Father for forgiveness. And as long as we are generous with the grace that He gives us, we can expect that God will forgive us. Now listen, we're not talking about whether or not you get to go to heaven. That's a related topic, but it's not a topic upon which this rests. I will say, though, that the reason some Christians do not know how to forgive is because they're only nominal Christians. They've never experienced forgiving grace and therefore have none to give. So, that's that. So as I look through this enclosure, I see that we're expected to grant people forgiveness so long as we desire it from God. Now, let's take a look at chapter 15. Look at chapter 15. And the reason I'm doing this is because there's a lot of facets of being a forgiving person. This morning we talked about the disciplines of being a disciple. I would like to just submit to you that we have to get good at forgiving. And while I'm at it, even though it's not the point of the passage, we have to get good at repenting. All right, so this third parable in Luke 15 begins with a certain man who had two sons. And the certain young man who has two sons, by the way, is preparing. You know the story of the prodigal son. He spends a long time in a far country, verse 13. And then in verse 17, he comes to himself and he starts preparing a speech of repentance. And notice what it sounds like. Verse 18, I will arise and go to my father and say to him, I have sinned against, whoa, heaven and before you. Two facets of sinning that need to be forgiven, the human facet and the facet against God. I've sinned against heaven and before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. There's no speech of entitlement there. You ought to forgive me. You're a Christian. I thought Christian people forgive. No, I am not even worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. This is repentance. This is throwing up the white flag of surrender and saying, if you take me back, which I'm not worthy of, I don't even deserve to be where I was. And before he can even get that out of his mouth in verse 20 when he was still a great way off His father saw him had compassion fell on his neck and kissed him and the son said to him father I've sinned against heaven and in your sight and no longer worthy be called your son. So so far so good He got that far verse 19, but he didn't get the rest of his speech out. I It finishes in verse 19 with, make me like one of your hired servants. He doesn't get to that. The father cuts him off and says, verse 22, to his servants. The father doesn't even say, it's OK, boy. I love you. It's all right. It's all right. I think the father shows that he's forgiving by turning to his servants saying, get the best stuff we've got back there and kill the best animal we've got back there. You get the idea. The father is way more interested in us asking for forgiveness than we are. In fact, let me say it this way. He's more interested in forgiving us than we are in asking for it. That's the Father we serve. He runs to where we're walking. Isn't that beautiful? Alright, and then the last one as I land this jet plane. Look at chapter 23. Chapter 23. He runs to where we're walking. That is the heart of our Heavenly Father. Then we get to Luke 23, and I want you to notice verse 32. You've seen this before. There were also two others criminals led with him to be put to death and when they had come to the place called Calvary there they crucified him and the criminals one on the left hand forgive me one on the right hand the other on the left and Jesus said father forgive them for they do not know what they're doing. They don't know what they're doing Okay, so here's what you need to get out of this. This is what's called in Greek the imperfect tense and That means that Jesus did not just say father forgive them for they know not what they do Jesus is continually saying Father forgive them for they know not what they do Every time they punched him in the mouth every time they plucked a part of his beard off Every time they hammered something into his hands every time they put the crown of thorns on him every time verse number 34 they divided his garments took the last thing he owned on planet earth and gambled it off and Every time they did anything to him, the idea here is twofold. As they sinned against them, he was asking the Father to forgive them. It is extravagant love. It is the kind of love I want. It is the kind of discipline of continual forgiveness that I want. And you'll notice something that is missing here, and this is really the theological, Christological point of the message. Not one person at the cross asked Jesus to forgive them. And not one person at the foot of the cross asked the Father to forgive them. Jesus knows that the greater thing here that must be accomplished is the salvation of the people who are doing this to Him. This awful thing! These awful, terrible things they're doing against Him. The greater cause is not that they say sorry to Him. The greater cause is that they are forgiven by the Father. Now here comes this very, very difficult thing and I'm done. You have got to, and so do I, oh my goodness, so do I. I've got to come to have such a great walk and talk with the Holy Spirit that at times in my life, Have to decide by his leadership is This person the one I'm supposed to repent so that I can get on with life with them Or is this the person that I'm supposed to pray for that? God forgives them long enough for them to repent towards him There's no guidebook I haven't found it, so I should be more careful. There's 32,000 verses in the Bible and I don't have them all memorized, so I suspect that there could be a flowchart somewhere in these pages. But we've been confronted with two very earth-shattering realities here. Someone sins against me, I want a life with them. We confront this thing, and even if I don't want a life with them, I have to have a life with them. We work together, we're married together, we go to church together, we serve on committees together, we're deacons together, we're pastors together. it is where neighbors you have this Luke 17 3 and 4 relationship with them where you know you have a responsibility rebuke them so that they can repent so that you can forgive them it takes faith it's your duty that's what we do but then over here when they're not interested in asking for your forgiveness and they are not interested in repenting what do you do You acknowledge the fact, I acknowledge the fact, that the most heinous, terrible, wrath-filled, angry, damaging, damning, despicable thing that I can do to them pales in comparison with what will happen to them if the Father doesn't forgive them. May God help us. May we sing out of forgiven hearts.