Forgive as You've Been Forgiven

Today, I want to speak from a passage very dear to me about a subject which is very challenging, which is forgiveness. And even in Milton's prayer for fathers today. The connections were made between the subject of forgiveness and the thought of Father's Day. For some people, Father's Day is a very happy day.

Some of us have fathers who have loved us. Some of us have fathers who have pointed us to Christ. Some of us as fathers have children who have brought us great joy. But there are hard realities, just like on Mother's Day, similar things happen where there's some who have wanted to be fathers and have never married, or married and couldn't have children, and it can be a hard day.

But even thinking of relationships with fathers, I don't know many of you well on a personal level, but there have been some, there's some people in this room. Who were mistreated by your fathers. And some of you have been mistreated by your fathers perhaps in shameful ways that no one knows about as much as you do. And it's a really hard day, and some of you even have to have relationships with fathers who have never sought your forgiveness and have wronged you.

some of us likewise have children, as Milton prayed for us. I have children whom I love, but they're not walking with the Lord. And so fatherhood is difficult and Father's Day isn't just this cheerful Facebook representation of life is wonderful, which we all try to do on Facebook and Instagram. But there are, are difficult things and then as it comes to forgiveness, some of us have been wronged and even if the other person has sought our forgiveness, it's hard to forgive.

and then I'm going to talk in the sermon about what if the father or other people who have hurt you deeply, and even if you're not a father, You've been hurt by somebody. And most of the people who have hurt us most deeply never do seek our forgiveness. How do I deal with that? How can I forgive?

Should I forgive? What if the person who hurt me is, is already gone? They're dead. What can I do?

And then there's a topic I'll touch on briefly. Some of you may know where I'll go with it and some people say, well, my problem is like even as a father that I came to the Lord later in life and I'm ashamed of the father I was. And even for those of us who are older, I have grandchildren now, you look back and you have guilt, you feel shame over your shortcomings. And Sometimes there'll be a question raised like, well, I don't feel like forgiving myself.

We'll, we'll answer that. I also want to express, I'm, I'm glad for the young people who are here. And I'm thankful for what Milton prayed for you as children, that you have to practice forgiveness too. Your parents are going to sin against you, your siblings are going to sin against you, your friends are going to sin against you.

And we need to learn to forgive. I also love that we sang the hymn, the song based on the Lord's prayer. There's some really hard words in that prayer, aren't they? Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

How do we do that? Well Failing to forgive is really hard. Ken Sandy said that unforgiveness is the poison we drink, hoping others will die. CS Lewis wrote that everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive.

And so in your Bibles, turn to Matthew 18. I think it's important to notice the context is right after a passage we, we think of it as church discipline, but it's really confronting those who have sinned. And if your brother sins, go and show him his fault. And there's a process of restoration described there, which when people do repent, they're gonna need to be forgiven.

And so right after that in the context, in verse 21, then Peter came and said to Jesus, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him, up to 7 times. And Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to 7 times, but up to 70 times 7. For this reason, the kingdom of heaven may be compared with a king to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. And when he begun to settle them, one who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to him.

But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment be made. So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, have patience with me and I will repay you everything. And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave the debt. I'll stop there for now, we'll continue in just a moment.

This is just one of my favorite parables in the entire Bible. It's a parable that I use often in my own heart. I use it in my counseling, and reflects a gospel truth. And the truth is, you have been forgiven a great debt if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But as we look at this parable, the challenge for each of us today is, do you see your sin the way Jesus describes your sin? Somebody put up on Twitter this week, from a gathering of Christians where. The the word sins was replaced with mistakes and and in a famous hymn. all my mistakes and griefs to bear.

and oftentimes when you talk to people, right, when they say they do something wrong, I, in counseling, when somebody says, I made a mistake, I will interrupt and say, no, you sinned. It's the mistake is I was adding up numbers and I got the number wrong or I made a wrong turn. Sin is when we violate God's law. When we fail to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and we fail to love our neighbor as ourself, and sin is serious.

Others will say, well, I'm human. Nobody's perfect. I'm better than most people. The scripture says all of our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.

Jesus is expressing here. Every single one of you, your sin is a great sin, an incalculable debt to a holy God against whom you have sinned, and his justice cries out that you be punished. And in the parable, Jesus uses this expression, 10,000 talents. You're like, what's a talent?

Well, different commentators and scholars have tried to calculate what 10,000 talents will be. What I will tell you is that there's a sense in which Jesus is using hyperbole, and there's actually a sense in which he's minimizing. The sense in which he's using hyperbole is 10,000 talents would be many billions of dollars in our money today. A lot of money.

And it's hyperbole because you can't imagine a slave or a servant incurring a debt like that, right? My credit cards have limits, and, $20,000 and they won't lend you any more money. So anybody listening to this would say there's never been in all the history of servants in the Middle East, someone who actually owed billions and billions of dollars. It's more than all the gold that was used in the temple.

That was 8000 talents, but this is the point, and that's where it's actually minimizing, is you owe to God, you owed God a debt which can't even be quantified. Maybe some of you financially have owed debts that were so big you could never imagine paying them back, but here's a debt, if you made the minimum payment for a billion years, you wouldn't be able to pay it off. And and that represents how great our sin is and the Bible says that before you can be forgiven, you have to acknowledge the debt.

You have to admit it's not just that you're not human, it's not just that you make mistakes, that you are a sinner whose sin is so great you have incurred an infinite debt to the justice of God.

First John 1:8 says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. And so if you think today that you're a good person, the Bible says you are completely wrong. You've not loved God with all of your heart. You've not loved your neighbor as yourself.

You could take every one of the 10 Commandments and you've violated those commandments. my own dear wife's testimony is that it was only when she was about 18 years old, and we were first getting to be really close friends, and we were studying the Bible together, and she came to understand even though in every way, as far as the world was concerned, she was a good girl, she first had to come to grips with the fact that she was a sinner. You see, it's the thirsty who want to drink.

It's those who, who realize the, the greatness of their sin, who, who yearn for a savior.

Galatians says that the law of God is like a tutor to lead us to Christ. When you look at your face in the mirror of God's law and you see how filthy and ugly you are, that, that's when you're crying out, Lord, I need a savior. And that's what Jesus is saying, you have to take your sin seriously. Before God can forgive you.

But then the parable reflects a reality of what's happened to believers is God forgives sin. For those who ask, First John 1:9, if we confess our sin, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And, and the slave, in this, the, the, again, I wanna, I need to make this point a couple of times. The parable is not an allegory in which every detail matches up with theological reality.

A parable is making one point, which is you who have been forgiven much need to forgive. But where the par parable does match our reality is that the slave, when he begged his master, saying, have patience with me, I will repay you everything, for, for the asking, he was forgiven. And actually, if you look carefully at the parable, what did he ask for? Give me more time and I will repay.

OK. That was ridiculous, right? That actually is often what human nature is. It's not a great apology if you've studied the peacemaker.

He did not go through the seven days of confession there, and yet his master simply forgave him for the asking, and not, not just saying I'll give you more time, but it says he felt compassion. And released him and forgave him the debt. And that's what has happened to you if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and, and this does reflect the truth elsewhere in scripture that God forgives debt freely. In Titus chapter 3 verse 4, it says, when the kindness of God our Savior appeared and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us not on the basis of things which, deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.

The forgiveness that God offers is given to those who ask through Christ. And again, the parable is not complete. We know from the Bible that God didn't just say, I forgave you. He forgave you because Christ came into the world to be a propitiation for our sin, that Christ came and died for our sin, as Peter says, once for all, the just in the place of we who are unjust, that we might be brought to God, but simply for the asking.

I love what Spurgeon said. He was talking about Isaiah 55, where the Lord says he gives the blessings without money, without cost. He says, most people, most salesmen have a hard time getting their customers up to their price. He said, my problem is I have a hard time getting them down to my price.

People want to do something to be forgiven by God. They want to pay off the debt, they think oh, I can do it. And, and the scripture says, there's nothing you can do except confess your sin. And then God graciously forgives.

No payment required, no penance, no works, no sacraments. He forgives those who ask. And actually, there's another aspect of the parable. Again, it's not an allegory, is what you've received from God, if you're a Christian, is better than what the guy in the parable got.

That he got a debt wiped out. But 2 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 9 says, for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, that you through his poverty might be made. Debt-free. Rich If the parable were an allegory.

The master would have said to his servant, not only do I forgive you the debt. I'm adopting you as my son and now you're my heir. That's what God has done for you if you're a believer in Jesus Christ. But the point in the parable is magnificent.

You've been forgiven a great debt, and as the parable is going to move on. Of course, the point is the key to becoming a forgiving person. Is to meditate upon God's gracious forgiveness to you. That's actually one benefit of coming together as the people of God and singing the songs that we sing.

We sing of God's grace to us, we sing of the forgiveness we've received, we sing of the work of Christ. That should make you a different person. As we think of what the scripture says. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.

Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool. That was Isaiah chapter 1 verse 18. In Psalm 103, as far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from us.

Just as the Father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him, for He Himself knows our frame. He is mindful that we are but dust. He remembers our sin against us no more. John the Baptist said of Jesus when he saw him, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And so before I move on to the next part of the parable, I want to challenge you with this question, have you been forgiven by God? Have you seen your debt the way God says it is? Have you seen your debt the way Jesus describes it is a debt you could never pay with all the works and and sacraments and labors, not the labors of my hands, the hymn says, could fulfill your laws demand. Have you seen yourself as a sinner?

And if you sought forgiveness, the only way forgiveness can be obtained by turning to Christ, confessing your sin to God, and receiving the grace of His forgiveness. Are you still trying to win God's approval by your works? It's a futile effort. It's like trying to pay off a $10,000 debt.

You'll never do it. Christ is the one who paid. You must trust in Him. So as we continue in the parable, In verse 27 after the slave, first slave had been forgiven, verse 28, now that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him 100 denari.

And he seized him and began to choke him, saying, pay back what you owe. So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will repay you. But he was unwilling And went and threw him into prison till he should pay back what was owed. Now When I read this many years ago, when I heard this thing about the 100 Deery, I knew that 100 Day is a lot less than 10,000 talents.

And in my mind, I pictured like I've got some of these little widow's mites people have picked up in the Middle East, these little tiny pieces of, I thought it's just a bunch of little copper coins. It has no value, no big deal. Actually, part of the value of the parable is what it means to owe 100 denari. A denari was a day's wage.

Let's say you work 6 days a week, that would mean about a third of your year's salary. So if you make $90,000 a year, that would be a $30,000 debt. If you make 60,000, it's 20,000. Point being, it's not some little trifling amount, and that's where in the wisdom of God, this parable is reflecting the reality, forgiveness can be hard.

Forgiveness can be expensive. There are people here who have been deeply hurt. There have been people who've been cheated out of money. There are people who have been betrayed by a spouse.

There are people who have been hurt by a friend and gossiped about and lied about, and, we, we have really hard things happen. And, and this parable reflects the fact. The Some of us have experienced great harm from others. And of course, the point of the parable would be 100 denari or $30,000 seems like a lot of money until you put on the top of a fraction with billions and billions of dollars underneath.

The point Jesus is making though, as we keep going, is that forgiveness is not optional for forgiven people. That goes back to what Peter said in verses 21 and 22, when he said, how many times should I forgive my brother? And I'm sure from Peter's standpoint, 7 times seems like a very generous offer. But he says 70 x 7.

And I also think the 70 x 7 is a figurative amount. So young people, it doesn't mean when your sister does it for the 491st time, you can hit her. and we've been married 42 years. I'm way past my 10 490, in terms of the guilt I've incurred in, in my marriage, so.

But forgiveness is not a choice, and, and here's the point Jesus is making is that if you understand what it means that God has forgiven you. You will be a forgiving person. And to give you an analogy, and it's actually a bit of a personal analogy that in our family we've had 2 of our sons, we have 3 adult sons, and there were 2 of them who were badly estranged from each other and on our 40th anniversary a few years, a couple of years ago, it was Caroline's dream to get us all together.

But son A didn't want to be with son B and son B wasn't too excited about being with son A, and she wanted to take a picture with the whole family, children, grandchildren all together.

And so what could you do? And basically what Caroline, Caroline's appeal was, and she loves her children and they love her, says, will you for my sake, come? Will you for my sake, be kind to your brother, be civil, and make an effort because I want us all to be together at least once. It's been years since that happened.

And by the grace of God, I've got a photo now in my backpack of all of us together, and that was right before COVID, so it was a good thing we did that. That's the appeal Jesus is making. He's saying, you don't forgive for the sake of the person who betrayed you, the person who was unfaithful to you, or the person who harmed you, you do it for the sake of the one who has forgiven you. The one who has forgiven you the 10,000 talent debt is saying, not for her sake, but for my sake.

I want you to show grace. I want you to show forgiveness. the language here is also interesting because the second slave who owed the 100 denari uses the same words that the first one had done with the master. Have patience with me and I will repay you.

The Lord does not allow us to be impatient. And of course, the very, very sad thing in, in the parable is the one who had been forgiven so much was unwilling and threw him into prison till he should pay back what was owed. And we get to the end of the parable, and there is the warning. And continuing in verse 31, so when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their Lord all that had happened.

Then summoning him, his lord said to him, You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave in the same way I had mercy on you? And his lord moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. My heavenly Father will also do the same to you if each of you does not forgive your brother from the heart.

Now, this could be confusing to some people. Again, it's a parable making one point, which is you who have been forgiven should be forgiving. And so it doesn't mean in every way God is like the master. Those who have really been forgiven, God doesn't say, actually, I don't forgive you after all because you fouled up, OK?

We, the Bible tells us that nothing can separate us from God's love and we've come into that love. But the, the point of the parable is that if you will not forgive others. You have disconnected yourself from the gospel. Paul says, be angry and do not sin.

He warns that, he said, don't let the sun go down on your anger, lest you give the devil an opportunity. Paul also ties it to the gospel, and he does this both in Colossians 3 and in Ephesians 4, but just Ephesians 4 verses 31 and 32. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God and Christ also has forgiven you.

I'll speak very personally, OK, so. There are people in my life who have hurt me. Various ways. I use this parable very practically.

When I'm tempted to be angry. When I'm tempted to be bitter. When I'm tempted to think about what they did to me, I picture myself in this scene. And it's like I, I want to put my hands around this person's neck and say, pay back what you owe me.

But then I remember the 10,000 talents I've been forgiven. And I just can't do that anymore. And I think the point is a real Christian who is really repented of his or her sin. And really understands the grace of God to him or her, will be a forgiving person.

And John, in First John says, by this we know that we've come to know him if we keep his commandments. The one who says, I know him. And does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. And so someone who may intellectually be able to say, yes, I know Jesus died for my sins.

I'm saved by faith alone. You may be able to say that Satan knows it too, in terms of he knows that's what the gospel says. But the scripture is saying if you really have come to grips with God's grace to you, forgiveness is not optional. You're not saved by forgiving others, but if you are truly saved, you will forgive others.

And the language in the Lord's prayer, you'll forgive us our debts, our trespasses as we forgive our debtors or those who trespass against us and then if that's not clear enough, Jesus then later says that. Furthermore, he, he, he explains, if you will not forgive those who have wronged you, God will not forgive you. It's the fruit of being saved. Saved people are gracious people.

Unsafe people are vengeful people. And it's sobering. And so our forgiveness should resemble the forgiveness that God has given us. God forgives those who ask.

If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I said that He doesn't require you to make it up to Him. He doesn't send you to purgatory for 1000 years. Forgiveness cancels a debt.

That's what is reflected in the parables that you're giving up your claim to justice. Forgiveness is something declared. The relationship in which forgiveness is most often sought in my life is between myself and Caroline. And if she says, will you forgive me?

I have to say, yes, I forgive you. It's a decision not to hold the offense, and it's spoken. There's one phrase in this parable that's the very hardest part for me, and it's the last three words. In verse 35.

You see, I'm a pastor. I'm a biblical counselor. I teach people this stuff all the time and I tell people what to do about it and I show them from the Bible, the authority of the Bible. And so, if Caroline has wronged me and she seeks my forgiveness, I know I have to say yes.

OK? I'm in trouble if I don't. She'll call the elders on me or something, if, if I stay embittered. But, There's one time she actually threatened that about 25 years ago and I learned my lesson and I haven't done it since.

But you see, I can say the words. But those Jesus said, from the heart. It's not enough to say I forgive you. We have to sincerely forgive, imaging God's forgiveness.

That is hard. Different people have different struggles, right? I've known people who have had awful things happen to them and they forgive and they just like, like, they, they, it just seems like almost easy for them compared to me. My nature is.

I want payback. Like, I will say I forgive you, but you need to stay in the doghouse for a while, or you need to make it up to me, or I have the right to stay mad for a while, because I was really bad what you did. That's not from the heart. That's not forgiveness that resembles the forgiveness that God has shown to us.

Forgiveness ordinarily brings about reconciliation in in Romans 5, and of course all of this is about the gospel, our forgiveness of each other is to resemble God's forgiveness to us. And in Romans 5:10, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. Much more being reconciled, we will be saved by his life. You see, we've received this reconciliation where we were all at fault.

God not at fault. As we sought forgiveness, we've been, now we're sons of God, we're daughters of God. And so that's what we aim for in forgiveness. One of my favorite stories in the Bible, and actually Brian talked about it if you were at the conference, and he said when he reads this part of Genesis, he's, he gets emotional.

And I do too, and even though I'm not that emotional, but when I read the story of Joseph and his brothers. And when Joseph treats them as forgiven in about Genesis 45, and he embraces them, and then in Genesis 50 when they finally ask for forgiveness and he forgives them, he doesn't just forgive them, he cares for them. He gives them stuff. He says, I'm going to take care of you and your family.

Even after all they've done to him, didn't he have a right like to demand some payment? That forgiveness doesn't just remove the offense. Forgiveness, isn't that, by the way, God's forgiveness of you back to 2 Corinthians 8:9. He didn't just say, OK, we're, we're good now, we're even.

He pours blessing upon blessing upon his forgiven people, adopting us, giving his spirit and His gifts and, and the community of God's people, every blessing in Christ. So a challenge of forgiving is we've been forgiven. Is to bless those whom we forgive, to love them. Again, Joseph, what a beautiful example.

That's what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2 about the person who'd been disciplined and, and he's repented. He says, now show him love. Embrace him. Welcome him.

Now there are questions and misunderstandings about forgiveness. And I, I wanna address those just because they come up a lot in counseling. They probably, you have questions in your mind. Some people talk about, well, forgiving is forgetting.

And, and yes and no, it depends on what you mean by that. Jeremiah 31 says in the new covenant, God remembers our sins no more. similarly in Isaiah 43:24-5, I am the one who wipes out your transgressions for my own sake. I will not remember your sins.

And, and so if our forgiveness resembles God's forgiveness, it doesn't mean that you have a data wipe in your brain and you won't recall that bad thing that person did ever again. God still knows what David did, right? He didn't, he, he didn't cease to be omniscient about David's sin. What it means is I will remember your sins against you no more.

It, it's really how you think about the sins of others. Rather than remembering it against them for the sake of judgment, if it comes to your mind, you remember it as a forgiven sin. One that has been put behind. Such forgiving requires effort.

To actively forget. To actively choose to think about it the way God wants us to think about it. Also, forgiveness does not mean that we're just lightly forgiving sin, and again, that's a struggle I think we all have. You, you mean this person did all these bad things to me?

And quite quite the, the hardest, some of the hardest cases in counseling I've dealt with are when there's been abuse or mistreatment. Or adultery, unfaithfulness. And After your spell, I have a case right now that I'm really deeply involved when there's been unfaithfulness. It's actually somebody thousands of miles away.

You mean after all she did in betraying and lying? I'm just supposed to say yes. I forgive you, it's all wiped out. Yeah.

Isn't that too easy? Forgiveness comes at a cost, but who paid the cost of your forgiveness? Colossians, Jesus Christ did. Colossians 12 through him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

See, God did all the paying for you to be forgiven, to be reconciled to Him. And so when you choose to forgive, you're paying a price. You're gonna say, I'm gonna love this person who hurt me. I'm gonna show kindness and grace like God has done to me.

Which means forgiveness is not easy. So, what if I don't feel like forgiving? I'll answer the simple, with a simple question in return, which would be, the question is not, what do I feel like doing, the question is what does God want me to do? What would glorify Him?

What would please him? What would be according to his word? What if I said I forgave somebody, but no, I'm still really bugged by it. Maybe I didn't forgive them.

That, no, yes, the point is you made a decision to forgive. And one person said wisely, forgiveness is a decision followed by a process. So when you forgive, you're saying, I'm now going to bear the burden. Of how hard it may be to forgive.

I've, I've made a decision to forgive you, and I'm gonna continue to force my mind to think of you as forgiven. I'm gonna continue to strive to treat you as forgiven. And sometimes my feelings may not match that. The problem is not to go back to you.

I guess you need to seek my forgiveness again because I don't feel like it. It's, no, I declared forgiveness because I knew that's what the Bible said I should do. I'm relying upon the spirit of God to help me to forgive, and sometimes it's really, really hard. But Christ is not asking you to do for him anything less than what he has done for you.

Actually, it's 100 Days versus 10,000 talents. In the book, The Peacemaker, Ken Sandy talks about the promises of forgiveness. I'm, saying, I'm not gonna dwell upon it or think about it. If you keep thinking about what this person did and you roll it over in your mind, you picture them doing what they did, it's going to tempt you to become embittered.

I'm not gonna keep bringing it up against you. 1 Corinthians 13:5 says, love does not take, keep record of wrongs suffered. So if you've really forgiven, it's, you're not gonna just say, well, next time there's an argument, you need to be quiet because I forgave you and you did this. you're not pulling the skeletons out of the closet and beating them over the head with a, a thigh bone just because you can.

You, you, when you've forgiven, you've made a promise not to use it against them. It doesn't mean that when you're counseling it, may be relevant in terms of understanding a new problem, but you're not using it as a weapon. I'm not going to gossip about you and tell others about what you did if they don't have a right or a need to know. And as far as possible, I'm not going to allow this incident to stand between us or hinder our personal relationship.

Some people say, well, I can forgive, but I can never forget. Not good enough I realized there are circumstances. So again, I'm, I'm dealing with the hard questions, some of the exceptions. If someone has harmed you and there's still a danger to you, that does not mean you have to be around them all the time.

We strive to be as close as possible and in most cases, and even in cases there have been hard things that have happened in a marriage, if someone's really repentant, the goal would be that the marriage would be stronger than ever and forgiveness would be granted and not that you're making the person sleep in the doghouse for the rest of their life. So, you're trying as far as possible to bring things back together. There can be exceptional circumstances where. That may be possible, which is actually.

As we, as we continue, I'll give some examples of that. Question to you, well, how do I know if he's really repentant? And the Bible does say there is a worldly sorrow that leads to death. We actually have a little card we use in counseling, and, I'm not gonna go through it now.

It's on a website that I created and that's true repentance versus worldly sorrow, and I think there can be circumstances where some people wanna use asking for forgiveness as a, a get out of jail free card, and I don't think it's wrong if someone has deeply hurt you. To say, I really want to forgive you. That's also where like the seven days of confession and the peacemaking, trying to, trying to go into more depth saying, I want this to work. That's also where council can really help to get an elder or a counselor, godly biblical counselor involved, to try to.

work through when they're striving for reconciliation. there are cases where people say they want forgiveness. They just want to work a program and get their rights back, and there's not repentance, and there is a worldly sorrow, so we occasionally have to deal with that. Another really important point, a couple more really important qualifiers I want to give before we finish would be the question, does forgiveness always eliminate the consequences?

My general answer would be, wherever possible, we want to do that. I've just been amazed to see some who have been deeply hurt, often in marriages, when God gives repentance to the guilty party that through the gospel. I've, I've literally seen, there was a case I had many years ago where there was a man who had squandered his entire retirement fund on prostitutes. And I sent him home to tell his wife what he had done.

And he professed repentance, and he, she said, I, I, I, I think I can forgive him. I don't want to be divorced, but. This is really hard and. Weeks into the counseling, it was like in May, April or May, and they came back and things were different and they were a little bit cuddly and, I said, what happened?

She says, well, I went to my Good Friday service at my church. And the pastor spent a long time describing what Jesus suffered for me, and I realized that. If God could forgive my sins, and if he could pay such a price to forgive my sins, then I can forgive my husband. And being more fully reconciled so we wanna minimize where possible the consequences, but sometimes there are consequences and I'm just gonna give you a couple brief examples in Numbers 14.

you have a situation and young people remember when, the Lord sent the spies into the land. How many spies were there? 12. How many were believing faithful spies?

2, Joshua and Caleb. The 10 unbelieving spies gave a report, Don't go into Canaan, it's too scary, go back to Egypt, this is bad. And what did the people of Israel do? Who do they believe?

The 10 unbelieving spies, and the Lord is angry, and Moses stands as a mediator trying to turn away God's anger with these unbelieving people. And in verse 19, he says, pardon, I pray you, the iniquity of these people according to the greatness of your loving kindness, just as you've also forgiven these people from Egypt until now. So the Lord said, I have pardoned them according to your word. But indeed as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.

Surely all the men who have seen my glory and my signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put me to the test these 10 times and have not listened to my voice, shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of these who spurned me see it. Do you see what the Lord is saying? He's saying, When Moses is interceding, he says, OK, I'm not going to wipe him out. But this generation is going to live in wandering, and it's only the next generation that will live in the land.

There was a consequence. When you read in 2 Samuel 11 and 12, where King David committed adultery and murder. And he pleaded forgiveness, and you can read about his pleadings in Psalm 32 and Psalm 51, and, and the Lord forgave David, meaning David was not executed. He was allowed to live.

But the Lord said Things are gonna be tough from now on. I actually said, your baby's gonna die. And your own family is gonna rebel against you and, and so sometimes sin has consequences. There I've already mentioned the case if someone has abused you, if someone, especially without repentance is horribly mistreated you, it doesn't mean you act like nothing happened.

Sometimes, from my standpoint, we wanna minimize those consequences, if somebody stole the money they need to pay the money back. If someone committed a crime, it may need to be reported. So what the Bible says about forgiveness does not eliminate all consequences. But again, my position is the one forgiving is I wanna minimize, not maximize that.

Usually there shouldn't be consequences, but sometimes there shall be. One of the really important question that I need to raise is the question that often comes up, what if the person who hurt me won't seek my forgiveness? Again, in these hardest cases when there's been a father or a mother who mistreated a child or a husband who mistreated his wife or a spouse who was unfaithful. And They're not repentant.

They're not sorry. How do I handle that? And I think sometimes people think there's this false dichotomy. I'm either gonna be a bitter, angry, hateful person who is always forever scarred by the bad things done to me, or I'm going to forgive someone who's not sorry.

Those both seem to be bad options. And I think the Bible gives us some insight and in Luke chapter 17 verse 3. Jesus says, be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him.

And if he repents, forgive him. You see the conditionality in that? There are circumstances in which someone has done wrong. And we only can be reconciled to that person if he repents.

by the way, this is how, who does God forgive? Only those who ask. Those who say they have no sin deceive themselves and they're not forgiven. Those who confess their sins are forgiven.

And so in terms of reconciliation, if someone will not admit the wrong they did and they deny it, they excuse it, you can't be fully reconciled. And I've had situations in my life where I feel like I've been greatly wronged. And Even that person may have died, or they're right in their own eyes. And so I can't, it, it wouldn't make sense, yes, I forgive you.

He's not even sorry he did it. I was reading this morning, again about when the Pope John Paul the 1st, 2nd 2nd, I think, was shot and he went and forgave the guy. Well, the guy at that point wasn't sorry. He was sorry the Pope lived, as far as I knew, in the early aftermath, later, many things happened.

But, so, but you can have an attitude of forgiveness without being a vengeful person. That's what it is. So, You pray that there will be reconciliation, but what did Jesus say on the cross? Father, forgive them.

They know not what they do. What did Stephen say? Lord, do not hold this against them as the people were stoning them. We can have a forgiving attitude.

I still use the parable of the unmerciful servant in my own heart when I, I feel like choking and paying, say what you owe figuratively. when I'm, I'm, I'm tempted to be angry and embittered, that I should still say I have the attitude of one who has been forgiven this infinite debt, willing to forgive the wrongs done to me, not being embittered, being a gracious person. Some of us are in family relationships with unbelievers who will never repent or claim to be believers who will never repent.

We still have to be kind to them and nice to them, love those who may have treated us like enemies, which is what Jesus says is God-like.

So we, we don't always get the reconciliation in this life. But we can have an attitude of grace, and I've used the example, it's like the father of the prodigal son, looking down the road, hoping someday he'll come so we can embrace him. But they don't always come. And not always on our time schedule.

one of the favorite books I've read was Unbroken by Laura Hildebrand, and she tells the story of Louis, I think Zemperini is how you say his name, and he was an Olympic athlete, went into World War II, got captured early in the war, was tortured horribly in Japanese prison camps. And after the war, he attended a Billy Graham rally in, in the late 40s when his life was spiraling badly out of control and became a real Christian. And, Louis Zamperini would actually go back to Japan preaching the gospel and would try to find the guards who had tortured him.

And offer them the forgiveness of the gospel in Jesus Christ.

Forgiveness from him, forgiveness from God. But when I read the book by Lord Hildebrand, she described one particular guard, his name in Japanese, I won't try to pronounce, but he was nicknamed The Bird. And he just seemed to have it in for Louis and just mistreated him and horribly mistreated him. Well, finally, I think it was around 1980, they, they hosted the Olympics in Japan, and Zamperini wanted to make one more attempt to go see the bird.

And Zamperini was actually like one of the torchbearers and the media caught up on this, but the guy, the bird refused to see him. And so they, and then the bird died not long after that, and they, he died with them unreconciled. Romans 12:18 says, as far as is possible for you to be at peace with all men. You can be eager to forgive and eager to be reconciled, but you can't make it happen.

And you have to entrust that to God. But for most of us and in most relationships, we could hope for better things. We who have been forgiven by God. By God's grace, don't just have an example of forgiveness, we have the power to forgive.

I have another story, some of you may have heard before of Corey Tinboom. And she describes a scenario and those of you who don't know who she was, Carolyn actually heard her live, late in her life in, in college. That's how old we are. And, at Baylor, when we were first starting as students there, she was a speaker, but she and her sister in the 40s hid Jews from the Germans who were trying to kill off all the Jews.

And she tells a story. She says it was in a church in Munich that I saw him. A balding heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown help felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs at the door to the rear.

It was 1947. I'd come from Holland to defeated Germany with a message that God forgives. It was a truth they needed most to hear in that bitter bombed out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander's mind, I'd like to think that where forgiven sins are, that's where forgiven sins are thrown.

When we confess our sins, I said God cast them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence and in silence collected their wraps and in silence left the room.

And that's when I saw him. Working his way forward against the others, one moment I saw the overcoat and brown hat, the next a blue uniform, a visored cap, skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush. The huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man.

I could see my sister's frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Oh, Betsy, how thin you were. Betsy and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland. This man had been a guard at Ravensbrook concentration camp where we were sent.

Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out. A fine message, Fraulein, how good it is to know, as you say, our sins are at the bottom of the sea. And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than taking that hand. He would not remember me, of course.

How could he remember one prisoner among all those thousands of women? But I remembered him. The leather crop swinging from his belt, I was face to face with one of my captors, and my blood seemed to freeze. You mentioned Ravensbrook in your talk, he was saying, I was a guard there.

No, he did not remember me. But since that time, he went on, I have become became a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well, Fraulein. Again, the hand came out.

Will you forgive me? And I stood there, I whose sins had again and again had to be forgiven and could not forgive. Betsy had died in that place. Could he erase her slow, terrible death simply for the asking?

It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I ever had to do, for I had to do it. I knew that the message that God forgives is a prior condition that we forgive those who have injured us. If you do not forgive men their trespasses, Jesus says, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses. I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience.

Since the end of the war, I'd come home. In Holland I had a home for victims of the Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what their physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids.

It was as simple and as horrible as that. But as I stood there with coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion. I knew that too.

Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. Help, I prayed silently. I can lift my hand. I can do that much.

You supply the feeling. And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me, and as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

I forgive you, brother, I cried with all my heart. For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I have never known God's love so intensely as I did then. Forgive one another.

His God in Christ also has forgiven you. Let's pray. Father in heaven You are a perfect father. You have never once wronged us.

Thank you that we don't need to forgive ourselves because you have forgiven us in the gospel of Christ. And that's what matters We pray, oh Lord, as our shame has been taken away by Christ, we could embrace that forgiveness, find security in that forgiveness, find joy in that forgiveness. And then Lord, there are people here who have been hurt. Give us grace to have a heart of forgiveness.

Help us to remember how we have been forgiven, to give us the strength to forgive. And Lord, where we may have wronged others, give us the wisdom, the power. To seek forgiveness, that we could practice biblical reconciliation, we thank you through Christ, through whom we have been reconciled through His blood, been reconciled to you. We pray in his name.

Amen.