Choosing to Forgive - Part 2 (6 of 12)

Well, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Mark chapter. 11 for our time of study and the word this morning, we're continuing to talk about this most important subject of forgiveness, and this is the 6th week that we are looking at this topic which merits the amount of time that we, are giving to this because it is so important. Guys, if you can take the gospel and learn how to apply the gospel to the area of forgiveness and effectively be a good forgiver of the people in your life that have wronged you, there's nothing else out there that's, that's harder than that.

So if you can do this, you can slay a 1000 giants in the process, walking.

in grace. And so if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be Choosing to Forgive Part 2, Choosing to forgive, Part. 2 In October, I think it was October 2nd of 2006, a man named Charles Roberts IV walked into an Amish one-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, barricaded himself and I believe 10 girls in that schoolhouse, and ultimately shot 10 Amish girls execution style, intending to kill all of them. And ultimately ended up killing 5 of them, and the others were left wounded and profoundly traumatized for life.

When the police approached the building, Charles Roberts shot and killed himself. When the news of the story broke, this was in 2006, I think many of you remember when the news of this tragedy broke. We were all mortified, just horrified by this senseless tragedy, this monstrous evil that this man had committed. But the reason I bring it up in the context of our topic today is that something really interesting happened in the days following the, the, the tragedy., in the first couple of days after the, the story broke, the headlines were all about the atrocities that this man had committed, and the details of the story were awful.

There was just simply no making sense. Of what he had done and why, but somewhere on about the 3rd day, the story started changing and the headlines in the newspapers and And on the internet became more about less and less about the tragedy and more about the grace and the forgiveness that the Amish were showing towards this man who was dead, but in terms of their disposition towards this man, the forgiveness and grace they showed towards him and towards his wife and towards his mother and, their children and even towards this man's parents in law.

The stories became all about the love that they were showing toward one another, and the grace and the forgiveness that they were showing. Literally, guys, the love and the grace of the Amish people changed the story.

And stole the headlines in a remarkable way. And I remember a seasoned reporter was interviewing an Amish lady in the days following this tragedy, and this Amish lady was saying, we harbor no bitterness in our hearts against the man who killed these children. We have grace and forgiveness towards him. And this seasoned reporter got choked up in the interview and began to cry and said, How can you possibly do this?

How can you have this grace towards the man who did what he did to these children? And this, this Amish lady, in the national media said, God has forgiven us of our sins, and so we can forgive others of their sins against us. And thus the gospel just got declared. And here's why I share this, and here's what we can learn from the Amish on this, and that is, guys, that when, when we forgive people of the wrongs that they do against us, we steal the headlines and we change the story.

The story is no longer about the wrong that they did, but now it becomes about the grace and the forgiveness and the love that we have shown to those that have sinned against us, and that is the ultimate victory. And by the way, regardless of whether the grace you show. Makes headlines. it would be nice if you forgave someone today and tomorrow you're reading about it in the paper.

Everyone's amazed. Wow, this is great. It'd be great if we made headlines on Earth all the time for the forgiveness and grace we show. But the point is that even if we don't make headlines on Earth, we do make headlines in heaven.

When you forgive somebody, the transcripts of that forgiveness are recorded in the annals of heaven. Your forgiveness of others always makes the papers in heaven. It always makes the headlines. And you think about it, guys, this is exactly what happened at the cross, is it not?

the crucifixion of Jesus, if you really look at it, honestly, is, is the most awful evil that mankind has ever committed. We slew Jesus with wicked hands. We killed the only truly innocent image bearer of God that has ever lived. Jesus came into this world and he did nothing but beautiful, good.

And we killed him. And the way that we went about killing him was absolutely awful. The crucifixion of Jesus is the single most shameful and embarrassing moment in the history of mankind. What we did to Jesus was far worse than what Charles Roberts the 4th did to those Amish schoolgirls.

But on the cross, Christ opened his mouth and he said, Father, forgive. And in dying on the cross, he was actually providing the means through which that forgiveness could actually come to us who are sinners. And in showing us grace on the cross, Christ stole the headlines, and he changed the story. And now, amazingly, this incredibly embarrassing, shameful event, we sing about it.

We sing about the cross. We wear necklaces with crosses on them. We put crosses on display and sides of churches and By the side of, of the road. Just this morning, I was down in the office and let's see, And on EFC's computer, the church that owns this property, there was a thumb drive in their computer and there was a cross hanging from the thumb drive.

We put crosses everywhere. That's a great and beautiful thing. Why do we do that? We do that because now when we see the cross, we think of grace, we think of forgiveness, we think of love, we think of salvation, and we think of hope.

And why is that? Because Christ stole the headlines, and he changed the story. The cross is no longer primarily the symbol of man's depravity, although it is that the cross is primarily a symbol of salvation and of hope and forgiveness and of grace. At the cross, God met us at our worst.

And he forgave us. And now God calls us to turn to other people and meet them at their worst. And forgive them and show them the same grace that He has shown to us. And I just, as we're going deeper into this series, I just want to ask you guys, what about you?

Are you a participant in this thing called forgiveness, giving forgiveness and grace to the people in your life who have wronged you? would to God that when the people in your life, think about the wrongs that they have done against you, that their hearts actually soar with gratitude, because they can't think about the wrongs that they have done against you, without at the same time, being reminded of the grace, and the forgiveness and the love that you have shown them in return.

But sometimes we choose the opposite path than the path of forgiveness. We choose to be bitter.

We choose to be angry, we choose to withhold forgiveness. And when you choose to withhold forgiveness from somebody who has wronged you, you're making the story all about the other person's sin. You let them write the headlines. You let them make the story.

Their sin, that's the headline, and the story ends there. And there are people like that. You remember the paperboys that used to deliver newspapers? Didn't really happen now.

I used to have a job as a kid doing that on a bike, just delivering newspapers, and, but people who are wronged, who refuse to forgive, that's what they are. They're a paper boy, a paper girl that, that are always delivering the news. Screaming headlines of the sins of other people. That's their story.

That's their headlines, headlines, and hang out with them. You don't hang out with them long before you're hearing those headlines. Guess what so and so did? Can you believe they did this?

They did this again. And that's sad because when a person is in a place like that, what they're really saying is that the evil of other people is more powerful than grace, and their evil has overcome me. It's sad when Christians find themselves in places like this. I have been in places like this sometimes for whole seasons.

I found myself in a place of bitterness where my headlines were the failures of other people, the sins of other people against me. But I want us to think about it this way, and this is, this is serious talk, guys. When you harbor bitterness in your heart against other people and you refuse to forgive them. If you're a Christian, here's what you're doing in those moments, you're basically saying, I believe the gospel as the means by which I get my sins forgiven, but I reject the gospel as the pattern for how I treat other people.

You're rejecting The gospel You're believing it, yeah, I get my sins forgiven through this, but I reject this as any template for how I relate to other people who have wronged me. Your testimony is basically, what, I just want to share with everyone, God met me at my worst, and he forgave me. Glory to God, but I refuse to meet other people at their worst and give them the same grace that God has given to me. What a phenomenal testimony.

This is a massive contradiction, and some of us are walking around with this massive contradiction, and we should find it intolerable in ourselves because it is so radically inconsistent. With the gospel, and so we're wanting to walk a different path and bitterness and anger and unforgiveness. We're wanting to walk this path of forgiveness, and we're learning about what that looks like and how to forgive. Ultimately there are 4 steps to forgiveness, and we have seen the first one in detail and we began looking at the second step last Sunday, the first step of forgiveness when someone wrongs you.

The first thing to do is to go to the cross and do some gospel thinking, and we unpacked 8 thoughts that you can think at the foot of the cross that God can use. To transport you to the place where you are disposed to give grace and forgiveness to those who've sinned against you. The second step of forgiveness, we began to look at last Sunday, and that is, you call it in, and you make the choice to forgive. You choose to forgive.

Forgiveness is a choice. And inside that choice to forgive are what we're calling six other choices, that go about explaining and amplifying how we Execute that forgiveness. 6 choices that we should make regarding how we go about forgiving those that have sinned against us. The first of these is this we saw this last Sunday, and that is that when we forgive, we should choose to forgive others in the context of prayer.

We should choose to forgive others in the context of prayer. We learned last Sunday that prayer is the location. Where we grant forgiveness to other people. It is in the presence of God before the throne of grace that we officially forgive people.

Jesus says, whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, he's saying, I want the location of your forgiveness to be inside of the venue. of prayer. It's very appropriate that he calls us to forgive in the context of prayer, because prayer is where we are close to God, in God's presence, and stretched out before him in total helplessness and dependence upon Him. And so because of that, prayer is the location where we of all places have the wherewithal to do this impossible, ridiculous thing called forgiveness of other people.

Jesus is saying, don't try to do this forgiveness thing. In any other venue than when you are praying in the presence of God in total dependence and helplessness before Him. Prayer is not simply the place where we confess our own sins to God and receive forgiveness. Prayer is the place where we forgive other people of their sins against us.

Forgiveness is not simply something that we do alone. It's something we do in the presence of the triune God before the throne of grace. Jesus says, when you forgive, I want that transaction of forgiveness to happen. In the context of prayer, there's a 2nd thing we saw, and that is that we should choose to forgive others in a way that is shaped by God's forgiveness of us.

We should choose to forgive others in a way that is shaped by God's forgiveness. Of us in Ephesians 4:32, Paul says, Be forgiving each other just as God in Christ has forgiven you. What we learn here is that God does not just want us to be forgiving others. He wants us to forgive others in a way that is motivated by and shaped by His forgiveness of us.

We have to think about this. When people wrong us, our thoughts need to go to our sins against God, His forgiveness of us, the grace He has shown us so that we can then motivated by that, shaped by that can turn to the person who sinned against us and give them that same grace. How has God forgiven us? I would encourage you this week, just make a list.

How has God forgiven me? Because however, he's done it, that's how I need to forgive other people. Couple thoughts, God forgave us at great cost to himself. And yet we all wish we could forgive other people at no cost, right?

But we need to be willing to forgive others at great cost to ourselves and experience the dying that goes along with forgiveness. God also forgave us as a grace. In fact, in Ephesians 4, literally, Paul is saying be gracing each other just as God and Christ has graced you. He uses The verb form of the word grace and grace means undeserved favor.

So when he says be gracing people that have wronged you, what he's saying is be forgiving those who don't deserve it. And that helps us because sometimes we may say I would forgive that person if he was deserving. But if he was deserving, it would not be a grace, right? And so God forgave us without regard to whether we deserved it or not, and we need to forgive others in the same way.

God also didn't just forgive us, but He loves us on the other side of the forgiveness that He gives us. He doesn't just say, what, you've asked for forgiveness. I will officially grant you forgiveness, but don't ever talk to me again. No relationship will ever happen between you and me.

Get over it, move on, but at least rejoice in the fact that I have forgiven you. God could have done that. I think we would have been grateful enough for that, right? but he doesn't do that.

He says, I forgive you. And not only that, I bring you into relationship with me, and I would like to give myself to you. And to welcome you into my presence so that we can have relationship, and I can lavish myself, lavish my love and my kindness upon you. And so when we forgive others, we do more than just, I forgive you, but we're done.

All right, we're over. I don't ever want anything to do with you again. No, forgiveness involves gracing people positively lavishing favor and kindness upon them. We can also say that when God forgives us, he forgives us hugely.

And so we remember the magnitude of our sins against God and thus the magnitude of the grace that He has shown to us, and I remember that no one will ever require more grace from me than I required from God, and God gave me grace and forgiveness. And so, I can pass this on to, to other people. We need to think about this, think about our sins, and God's amazing grace, as he forgave us of our sins, and allow that to motivate and shape our forgiveness of other people. Just real quick, this week, I was reading a, a Christian website where the author was giving counsel on how to forgive someone who has injured you in some significant way.

And, and she gave 5 steps to forgiveness, and you see them on the screen, and that is understand the importance of forgiveness, ask God to help you, say a forgiveness prayer, be committed to forgiving the person and find peace. Everything This person said was well said and beautiful, but as I read through it a couple times, what was missing was the cross, and any talk about the fact that you have sinned against God, and God has forgiven you, and that provides a resource and a motivation that can help you to forgive other people.

Paul did not neglect this in Ephesians 4:32, God has forgiven you. He has graced you.

And then he says, now do that towards other people. We need to keep this front and center in our thinking. The result is, guys, at the bottom of our refusal to forgive other people when you're in a place of bitterness, and you're refusing to forgive somebody of a sin that they've committed against you, at the bottom of that refusal to forgive is the fact that you are not thinking of the magnitude of your sins against God, nor of the magnitude of his forgiving grace toward you.

Embodied in your refusal to forgive is the fact that you believe you would never say this out loud, but you believe you're morally superior to that person that you won't forgive.

You can deny it. But you're positioning yourself in a position of moral superiority when you refuse to forgive someone. If you're a Christian, you say, what, I, yeah, I've sinned and God has forgiven me and I failed other people and, and I, I feel like they ought to forgive me for my failures, but this person, what they've done, their sin against me is in a different category, in a lower category than my sins against anybody else or against God. You're posturing yourself in a very scary place.

In a place wherein you're acting as if you think you're better than that other person, that you are in a position of moral superiority. When you're in that position, you will never appreciate the cross. You will never appreciate God's grace. At the root of all bitterness is a prideful failure to be truly impressed by the cross.

Your need for it. And the amazing grace of it all. So forgive others as you have been forgiven. there's a third thing that we have seen, and that is that we should choose to forgive others as a means of actually shaping our own experience of God's forgiveness of us.

We forgive others, not just because God has forgiven me, but actually knowing that the grace and forgiveness we give to other people serves to actually shape Our experience of God's forgiveness of us. Jesus says in Matthew 6, when you pray, say, forgive us of our debts as we have forgiven our debtors, and then he adds this commentary, if you forgive men for their transgressions, your Heavenly Father will also. forgive you, but if you do not forgive men of their transgressions, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

And so Jesus is making a strong connection.

You want to experience God's grace, you need to give grace to other people. There's no way around what Jesus is saying here. other than to say that it's very clear from Jesus' words that if you do not forgive others, God will not forgive your sins against him. What does this mean?

We talked about this a little bit last week. but let me just tell you what he's not saying. He's not imagining a scenario where someone sins against you, and you're like, what, I don't want to forgive them of their sin against me. And then the next day, you're coming before God, and you're just so broken over sin in your life and in true brokenness and humility.

You come before God, confessing your sin, and you're saying, God, forgive me of my sin. And then the father says, what, I see that you're truly broken and all, but because you didn't forgive someone yesterday, I'm not going to forgive you of your sin today. That's not what Jesus is saying. He's saying something that's even more scary.

What he's really saying is this if you refuse to forgive somebody of a sin that they have committed against you, and you begin harboring bitterness in your heart against them, then you will, by doing that, so harden your own heart. that you will render yourself unable to even experience the brokenness and the humility that is essential to the receiving of grace and forgiveness from God. When you're bitter against somebody, you, you cannot be humble. And bitter you cannot be broken over your own sin and bitter against other people when you refuse to forgive someone else.

You've just cut yourself off from the ability to even do real repentance. Over your own sins. And it's for this reason, guys, that we ought to be afraid of bitterness. We ought to be afraid of unforgiveness, because bitterness renders us unable to repent of our sins, and to stoop to the low places, to the low places where we can locate ourselves underneath the waterfall of God's amazing grace.

And so I, I forgive others because God has forgiven me, but I also forgive others because it maintains the current or the movement of God's grace within me. It's coming into me and going through me and passing through me to other people. And as I'm giving grace to others, God's grace is in motion inside of me, and I get to experience His grace. But when I withhold that grace from others, Then I get backed up with grace, as it were, and it hinders my capacity to experience God's gracious forgiveness for my sins.

There's a 4th choice that we ought to make when we are choosing to forgive others, and that is that we should choose to forgive others with specificity. we should choose to forgive others with specificity. Jesus is teaching us in the version of the Lord's Prayer that we find in Luke chapter 11, that one of the things we ought to say is God, forgive us of our debts. As we ourselves also are forgiving everyone who is indebted to us.

And even though it's interesting, Jesus is speaking generically here in an amazing way. He is modeling incredible specificity. and forgiving other people. Let's just break this down real quick and just rattle through these.

he says, as we ourselves, so that's me, I, I myself, I, the one who has been sinned against, am granting forgiveness. I'm not leaving this up to anyone else to do. I myself forgive. And then he says, as we ourselves forgive everyone, this is all inclusive, not some, but every single person.

If one person is left out, then you can't say all. That you're forgiving everyone. So this extends to everybody who has sinned against you. And also he says, as we ourselves are forgiving everyone who's indebted to us, in order to say that, you got to be aware of the debt, the fact that that person right there has wronged me, and they owe me something.

They have sinned against me. And what it is that they owe you. When you forgive, you don't just come to God and say, what, God, I don't even know who all has wronged me or not. But for anyone who has wronged me, I can't even think of anyone.

I just forgive all of them. Christ would say, don't ever do that. But the people that do wrong you. their name.

what they've done. what they owe you. Forgive them. That's what he's modeling here.

And then also the verb forgive is present tense, and part of what this would indicate is right now, right now in your presence, God, I am forgiving this person of their sin against me right now, this moment as I pray, I forgive. I am sending away the sin from between me and that person. I'm opening the gate and releasing or sending away that person from the prison cell of consequences that I would love to visit upon them because of their sin against me. I am forgiving right now this moment.

I'm not waiting till tomorrow to do this or next week to do this or until I totally feel like it before I do this. I'm not even going to rest on the fact that a week ago, I forgave them for something very similar. Right now, this moment, I forgive this person for what they have done that has hurt me. Also in saying we forgive, you're choosing to do something that's different than other things that you could have chosen to do.

You're saying, I choose to forgive rather than holding a grudge and nursing a grievance against this person. And you're also saying I choose to forgive rather than just ignoring. What this person has done and pretending that they never sinned against me, and choosing to forgive, you're also choosing to forgive rather than saying, oh, it's OK. That ever happened to you?

You ever gone to somebody and said, Man, I'm so sorry. I blew it. Will you forgive me? And they're like, Oh, it's OK.

maybe you've said that to people or had people say that to you. Let me just, a quick word of counsel. Don't ever say that to somebody. They come to you acknowledging they're wrong.

Don't say it's OK because it's not OK. Forgiveness is not saying it's OK, and when someone's asking for forgiveness, they're wanting something that's deeper and more profound than just hearing the words it's OK. What is needed is forgiveness. You see, forgiveness inside of forgiveness is a firm, robust acknowledgement that real wrong has been done, and it's not OK.

A real wrong, a real sin, and inexcusable wrong has been done. Forgiveness embodies within itself an acknowledgement. This person has sinned against me. It is sin.

It is a wrong that they have done, and it's not OK. But in this moment, I forgive them of their inexcusable wrong. I forgive them. Of the sin that they have committed against me.

I send the sin away from between the two of us, and I send this person away from the prison cell of my wrath. that they deserve for my sins, for their sins against me. The final indication of specificity as Jesus says in verse 2 to introduce all this, when you pray, say. So when you pray, open your mouth and say these words, speak, audibleize these thoughts.

Say this, Jesus is saying, I know that we can pray in our hearts and God hears our thoughts, and he hears the prayers that we pray in our hearts. And even if you forgave someone in your heart without voicing it out loud, God hears that, God honors that. I would just encourage you. To practice the discipline of speaking forgiveness in the presence of God out loud.

There's an accountability that comes with that. you're being very specific when you do that. Get somewhere by yourself. Don't do it in the presence of the person.

It's just wronged you, your Lord, I just want to say in your presence right now, in the hearing of this person, I forgive them for the wrong that they've just done against me. I'm not recommending that, but get by yourself and talk out loud to God. And verbally, verbally transact that forgiveness, express your forgiveness. God, I forgive this person for the real wrong that they have done against me.

Summing this up, I think we can just say it this way, whenever you do forgive someone in the context of prayer, Go into the presence of God and state to God the offense and the offender. So give God the person's name, if their middle name, include that information. be very specific, God, this person has done such and such against me, and then express the hurt that their sin has caused the damage that they're wrong has done. You're like, should I really tell God that?

Yes, God says, cast all of your cares upon me. You read through the psalter and you find multiple passages where the psalmist is talking about and complaining about what people around him are doing and saying and the hurt. The injuries that their actions are causing him personally. And so God, here's what this person has done.

This is his name, what he's done, and this is the offense that has been caused, the hurt and the injury that has been done. And you might as well just be honest with God and go ahead and confess to God, the debt they owe you and what you feel like doing. Lord, this is what I want to do. Every fiber of my being right now is wanting to do.

We'll leave that unstated. But then on the other end of that, Saying, God, all that being true. And then saying something to this effect, as a sinner, myself, who has been forgiven of far worse sins against you, I forgive this person for what they have done. And I will bear their debt and will absorb in my own person, the wrath that they deserve from me.

For their sin against me. Be very specific. Don't be vague in your forgiveness. Follow the model of specificity that Jesus is.

is putting before us here in Luke chapter 11. There is a 5th choice that we ought to make in choosing to forgive, and that is that we should choose to forgive others as a sacrificial offering of ourselves to God. We should choose to forgive others as a sacrificial offering of ourselves to God. When we forgive, guys, we have an opportunity to do something really phenomenal.

Look at what Paul says in Ephesians 4. He says, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore, Be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us. So he died.

He died for us. But look at what Paul introduces into the picture as an offering. And a sacrifice to God. As a fragrant aroma.

We often look at the cross and say, wow, that's a great demonstration of the love of Christ for us. And it is that Christ would say that cross and what I did there is not just a demonstration of my love for you. It is also a demonstration of my love for my Father. Write down John 14:31.

I think I hopefully got that right. When Jesus, the, the night before his crucifixion, he said something to the effect of so that the world may know that I love the Father, let us arise and go, and what they were arising and ultimately going to was his death. Christ would say that cross shows the world, not only that I love the world, but that I love my Father. And on the cross, he was not just transacting something so that we can have forgiveness.

He was offering Himself up in that dying as a sacrifice that would be well pleasing to his Father. We've learned already, guys, that forgiveness is death. Forgiveness is crucifixion. Forgiveness is suffering.

And so when we forgive and we experience the dying, the layers of dying that are entailed and forgiveness, we're doing so in part as a sacrificial offering of ourselves. To God God loves the fragrant aroma of forgiveness. We're pleasing Him when we forgive. God loves the smell.

Of forgiveness. We're worshiping Him when we forgive other people. It's an incredible act of worship and trust. God, you say, what sacrifice of worship can I bring to you that would be well pleasing to you?

God would say, hey, I got an idea. Forgive. Forgive other people. I love the aroma of forgiveness.

And when you absorb in your own person the debt that others deserve to pay, and you experience the dying that is entailed in forgiveness, that person you're forgiving is not the only beneficiary of that forgiveness, and you yourself are not the only beneficiary, but it pleases me. You're blessing me. You're bringing a smile to my face. See, this helps us.

Because usually when someone sins against you, you're not in the mood to forgive. You're looking at that other person and there's very little, if anything, in that person that would elicit from you a desire to show them grace. You don't like them right now, right? so you don't want to forgive.

And God says, forgive them, and you look at the person and you're like, I see nothing in them that makes me want to forgive them in this moment. And then we turn to our Father and He says, Look at me. Do you love me and that I love you and our relationship is what it is? Do it for me.

Do it for me. Oh God, it's gonna hurt. It's gonna feel like dying, blood, sweat, and tears. And God says, yes, my son experienced the same thing.

But if you surrender yourself over to that experience of the dying entailed in forgiveness, it would be a sacrifice extremely well pleasing to me. I love forgiveness. And it would be an incredible act of worship. That would bring a smile to my face.

And in such moments we look at the person that we don't like at this moment, and then we look back at the father whom we do love. And we say, what, this is going to hurt. But I can do this for you. I'll do this for you.

We have that opportunity. To do that again and again, and to bring a smile to the heart of God. There is a 6th and final step involved in forgiveness, and that is that when we forgive, we should choose to forgive persistently. We should choose to forgive, persistently in Ephesians 4, I take you back to that, Paul says forgiving each other, just as God and Christ has forgiven you, and the tense of that verb forgiving is be continuously forgiving each other.

So it's not just, hey, what, I've forgiven someone. I think one time I forgave someone in the last year. So don't get in my face and tell me about forgiving people. I've been there, done that.

That's not what you're being called to. You're called to a lifestyle. Forgiveness is not simply something you do every now and again. Forgiveness is a lifestyle.

And there's even something that's almost a warning in this passage. If you just got saved today, and you've never been a part of a church family at all, you've never met another brother or sister, and you're thinking about getting involved in a church full of brothers and sisters, and you're like, I wonder how I need to live. And then you hear God here say, hey, be continually forgiving. Dear brothers and sisters, What does that alert you to?

It alerts you to the fact that if I'm going to do relationship and community with the brothers and sisters in this church, then entailed in that is continuous forgiveness, continuous giving of grace. It must be true that these brothers and sisters are going to let me down. They're going to hurt me, they're going to injure me. And if we're going to do community right, do relationship right, then I need to be.

Continuously habitually. Living a lifestyle of giving grace and giving forgiveness, does that make sense? Let's go back to Matthew 18, where Peter comes to Jesus, and he says, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him up to 7 times. And Jesus said to him, I don't say to you up to 7 times, but 70 times 7.

I want you to look at Peter's question. This is actually a twofold question. In a way, he's asking, he's asking one question, but you can at least temporarily break it down into two questions and then bring it together. All right.

breaking it into two questions, he's saying, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me? It's question number 1. Question #2, and how often shall I forgive him? Peter's not just asking how often shall I forgive, he's wanting to get an idea of what's this going to be like.

Doing relationships with people over the long haul. And when Jesus says 70 x 7, he's not simply telling us we need to forgive people 70 x 7. Embodied in that is Jesus also saying, this is about what you can probably expect from your brother. If you are involved in a relationship with a person over the long haul, based on this passage, you should not be surprised if there are 490 occasions in which forgiveness is required.

Of you, 490 instances where this brother sins against you. If you are married to somebody. Imagine you're about to get married and you're talking to Jesus and you're like you're looking at your spouse, your future spouse, and saying, Lord, how often is this person going to sin against me? And I, and how often will I need to forgive them.

7 times? So over the rest of our life, maybe 7 times? No, 70 times 7, and Jesus is not wanting us to get hung up on the 490 times. He's just blowing the top off of Peter's thinking.

No, no, no, not 7, 70 times 7. And so this helps us and it informs our mindset, so that we won't be shocked when our brothers and sisters and their husband or wife sins against us. Someone wrongs you in your marriage. Or in the church, you're like, oh, I am stunned.

I am shocked. I had no idea this would happen. Forgiveness, what, I got, maybe I'll get to that for right now, I just got to get over the shock of it all that you have failed me, and you've sinned against me. No, Jesus is saying you should not.

be shot. And he's teaching us that when you do forgive, you don't forgive under the premise. That that person won't mess up again. You actually forgive knowing the likelihood that he or she will.

Mess up again. Forgiveness says I forgive you right now. And you may wrong me 489 more times, and I stand ready to forgive. I will forgive you now, knowing future failures await.

Is that not exactly what the Father does to us? When you come to him confessing a sin to him, a failure to him for the 100th time, and he forgives you, does he say, I will forgive you, but what, this is it. This is it. No more, or you might get 1 or 2 or 3 more, but this, you're getting real close.

No, God forgives us and he's omniscient. He knows we're gonna mess up 100 more times. And he still forgives us today. We get to enjoy that every day.

But then we get so tight-fisted with that grace. We can't give that to other people who have wronged us. Peter is really asking, Lord, how long should I stick with the relationship before I'm allowed to give up? Through how many offenses Can I endure before I'm entitled to give up on this relationship?

How often shall my husband sin against me? And I forgive them and stick with the relationship. How often shall my wife fail me and let me down and sin against me and And I have to stick with the relationship. When am I entitled to give up and to cease forgiving?

Jesus is teaching us, what, if you Say in your heart, I forgive this person, but this is the last time, then it's not true forgiveness. Forgiveness is saying I forgive you for this now. And if you were to do this 489 more times, I would forgive you that many more times if necessary. It's at this point.

That we almost want to cry. And say this is ridiculous, Jesus. And there's no way I can do this. And Jesus responds by saying, I was really hoping you would say that.

Because if you're going to do this, You have to be a broken person. Only broken people can do this. Only people who have been broken over their own sins. They've been broken by the cross, and they've allowed the flood of my grace to come in knowing that there is forgiveness for the real sins that they have committed.

It's only people who've been broken in this way and received my grace in this way, and then who abide in me and keep this in front of them, that are able to go to this ridiculous extreme. And saying I forgive you now. And I'll do it 489 more times if necessary. Wow.

Let me just address one question and we'll close. Here's a question that I get from time to time. Sometimes people will say, I forgave this person. Of their sin against me.

I forgave them 5 minutes ago, but I find myself angry again already. It seems to me that this forgiveness thing isn't working. What do I do now? You ever wondered that?

My reply is usually, Man, that's exciting. Forgiveness worked for 5 whole minutes. And now You just need to forgive again. If the essence of forgiveness is removing sin from between you and that person and releasing them from the prison cell of your wrath.

Then that means however often that sin comes between you and that person, or they're in that cell of your wrath, however often that happens, that's how often you need to forgive. And you need to be willing to do that. Forgiving. And, and if you forgive someone and 5 minutes later, you change your mind and say, what, I'm going to put that sin back between us and back in the cell, they go, and you're boiling over with anger, then Jesus would say, forgive again.

You do that 5 minutes later, you're boiling again. They're back in the cell again in your mind, Jesus would say, forgive again. I have known brothers and sisters that literally have had to forgive every 5 minutes, hundreds, thousands of times before they finally reached a point where they sent away the sin. and kept it sent away.

And released someone from the prison cell of their wrath and allowed that to stay away. You say, Pastorm, that sounds so hard. So undesirably hard, and what it is, but everything worthwhile. does not come easily.

It is hard, but what's harder. Unforgiveness. And that, what it's doing to you. what it's doing to your body.

what it's doing to your relationships, your relationship with other people, your relationship with God. what it's doing. And it's hard. There's nothing harder.

There's no harder lifestyle than the lifestyle of unforgiveness. So yes, forgiveness is hard, but it is a A battle worth fighting, and may God give us the grace to fight this fight, and to win this battle for forgiveness. Let's go to him and ask him to help us. You may be here this morning, and you're like, man, I, people have wronged me and hurt me, and I've, I've not forgiven them for what they've done.

And I now know why. It's because I've never even received this forgiveness from God. And if that's you, I just got really good news. Jesus died on the cross, and he was raised from the dead, and he's at God's right hand right now saying, I want to give you forgiveness and grace for your real sins against me.

Just right where you're seated, just turn to Jesus and say, Lord, I, I need your grace, I need your forgiveness. I call upon you to be my Lord and Savior. When you do that for the first time, The Bible says you've become a child of God. You receive the Holy Spirit inside of you.

You're released from the kingdom of Satan and you come into the kingdom of God. And all of your sins are forgiven. And now you can begin this journey of giving this grace to other people. If you've never called upon Jesus, please take this opportunity to do so today.

and be saved. Lord, We just come to you and just bring our brokenness to you. We are a mess so often, but you're the one we know we can come to because there's grace, there's forgiveness. You don't mince words about our sin.

Our sin is real and it's a big deal, but there is grace and it's greater than our sin, and your love is amazing. And it's to you we come to you we cry out and ask that you would make us a forgiving people. Help us to not be prisoners of our own anger and bitterness, but to, to learn to allow your grace to flow from us to other people, to walk in forgiveness and experience the joy of how that deepens our ability to even experience your grace more. We have so much to learn, Lord, thank you for what you've taught us.

Today, help us to go forth from here and leaning upon you, Jesus, to be able to practice this. Thank you for this opportunity to give up our offerings to you, receive these funds and do much with them for the glory of Jesus. In His name we pray, and all God's people said,