Enemies Within The Walls (part 2)

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Enemies Within The Walls (part 3)

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Father in heaven, we just thank you this morning For your goodness and kindness to us father even as we think about the blessing of being your children
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Lord who could imagine such a thing that you would grant that to us Father as we come together this morning pray that you would bless our time as we look at what you've taught us about forgiveness and Father what you expect of us
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In terms of forgiveness father. We just pray that you would bless our time in jesus name. Amen and just Hang on for a second while I shut this off Then all right, so we started talking about uh forgiveness last time and I wonder um
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Just generally speaking What would you say? Maybe the most important thing about forgiveness is
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Just one thing john I think that would be a great one since we've been forgiven so much.
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We should be quick to forgive I mean really I would say that other
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It's pretty hard to say that there's something more important than the concept of forgiveness Why would
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I say that? because apart from forgiveness you get
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Hell You get hell So I mean when we think in terms of that if we just think in terms of how important is forgiveness
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Well without forgiveness of sin We would go directly to Hell when we die, we talked a bit about how paul just how paul um
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Viewed himself in light of the grace of god in his life. And you know just to kind of recap
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Just listen to these verses here And I don't know why this frog has decided to attack my throat here
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But the saying is this first timothy 115 the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that christ jesus
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Came into the world to save sinners. That was his purpose of whom I am the foremost
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Romans 7 24 wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death First corinthians 15 9 and 10 for i'm the least of the apostles unworthy to be called an apostle
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You know paul had a real image problem He didn't think highly enough of himself he didn't understand how he had kind of cinched up his own belt and worked his way up and you know, he'd gone from being a bad guy a persecutor of the church to Really kind of a hero
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And he should be proud of that Well, if he'd gone to grade school here in the united states, maybe he'd feel that way
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He had a right view why because he saw things through the prism of god's forgiveness to him
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And we talked about how we should forgive Just the way god does
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And we're going to pick up there I mentioned this example this illustration that because we talked about what was that psalm 103
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I believe And about how god removes our sins as far as the east is from the west
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And we just talked about it this way that if god and I think this is a good illustration Anthropomorphic language meaning we're looking at it through human eyes so if god looks toward the east
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And he sees us Then he doesn't see our sin because our sin is in the west and if he looks towards the west and sees our sin
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He doesn't see us because we're over on the east So again using anthropomorphic language the psalmist helps us understand how god forgives
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That he doesn't he's no longer counting our sins against us He doesn't even see our sin and us in the same picture as it were
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Now as an ideal father god endlessly shows compassion upon us. I mean what father or mother?
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You know take your pick parents If it doesn't matter what your kid has done.
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Don't you want to forgive them? But god is the perfect parent in that sense.
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He forgives Listen what james montgomery boys said he said the forgiveness of our sins is the greatest benefit
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Any of us can ever receive from god and we can receive it only because god gave his son over to death on the cross
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To procure it for us Now again, I want to ask do we forgive that way?
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Do you forgive that way? Do you put the sins of others as far as the east is from the west? we're going to talk some more about this, but just kind of in a
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Just to sort of open it up here for thought for a moment. Do you rehearse the sins of others dwell on them?
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replay them I think the scripture would call that what the root of bitterness
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Sometimes I think uh, you know, not only do we have the root of bitterness But we have the water of bitterness because we take it along we water that root we nourish it
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You know, sometimes we have black thumbs, but boy when it comes to bitterness we can grow it really well We should forgive
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With an understanding of what we want when we ask for forgiveness. Let's look at psalm 51 psalm 51
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We're going to take a snippet of psalm 51 now and then another one later Who would read the first three verses please of psalm 51?
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Bruce when we think of the word blot, what does that mean?
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Blot out my sins. What does it mean to have your sins blotted out? erased
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Erased as if they never occurred I was thinking this week, you know, a lot of times.
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I mean pastor mike just talked. Oh, I don't want to ruin pastor mike's sermon But uh talked about some of the things that Will experience in heaven
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I was thinking we I will say that i'm looking forward to heaven because I look forward to the day when I what no longer sin
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Well, how about this? You ever think about this aspect of it? our minds are like hard drives
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You know, we can't we can't erase them only that's a that's part of the problem I mean, I'd like to have an industrial strength hard drive eraser, you know going to my brain and just delete entire sectors permanently unrecoverable
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Doesn't work that way. So what do we do? Sometimes we can just kind of replay some of our sins in our minds sometimes
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Sinfully but a lot of times just because we have what? Regrets so now just imagine being in heaven no more regret
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No more memory of the sins that we've committed. We'll finally be able to live without that and I thought boy that that will be a blessing
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That would be a great blessing in effect. Our sins are not only wiped out in terms of being
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To our account, but no longer will we think about them? Spurgeon said this
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My revolts My excesses are all recorded against me
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But lord erase the lines Draw thy pen through the register obliterate the record though.
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Now it seems engraven in the rock forever May the strokes of thy mercy bait Many strokes of thy mercy may be needed to cut out the deep inscription
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But thou hast in a multitude of mercies and therefore I beseech thee erase my sins take out the divine eraser and Eradicate them now in terms of how we forgive would we like?
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God to temporarily set us anger aside You know say yes,
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I forgive you But then when we sin again in a like manner or when we do something else to say, oh
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It's back on Did jesus die to temporarily remove the wrath of god for our sins no pastor dave
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Sent this to me and I think this is true when we think about How we want to be forgiven, right? We want this we want god to blot out our sins to to just remove them from us to eradicate them
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Like spurgeon said if they're written in rock Engraved on stone to just wipe them out entirely.
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That's how we want to be forgiven Pastor dave said this or wrote this
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You know and how sometimes we forgive some christians want to bury the hatchet when they say, you know what?
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Let's just bury the hatchet Yet they also want to leave the handle exposed so they may retrieve it if need be
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Yeah, let's just let bygones be bygones. Let's just bury that thing. Whoa, you're gonna do that.
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Oh, I got it back That's not forgiveness We ought to have an eagerness
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To forgive in light of the cross look at colossians I mean, that's something you know,
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I mean how many times you hear this, you know It's kind of like would you please forgive me and then it's kind of like Sure.
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Yeah I'll forgive you That's the wrong attitude. We ought to be eager to forgive
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Colossians 3 verses 12 and 13 who would read that please? Yeah, go ahead tom Okay, so we ought to forgive as the lord has forgiven but just look at that put on then as god's chosen ones as his
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Elect as the ones that he plucked out of the mire as those he set his affection on holy and beloved
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We had to have what compassionate hearts? Hearts that can identify with other people
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It's not like when people sin against us like it's never been done before, you know in the history of the world
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When we just when somebody crushes us or sins against us we think you know what? Historically speaking that is probably the worst sin that's ever been committed against anyone.
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So I I don't know It's going to take me a while to get over it We all sin
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We all sin against each other More importantly we sin against god how quickly should we
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Want to forgive be eager to forgive listen to what o 'brien says He says as god's chosen ones who have already been who have already put on the new man
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In other words, we're in christ. They must don the graces which are characteristic of him
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We're adopted We should be Acting as our father Verse says we're to bear with one another
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It doesn't mean we just put up with them. It means we're we're in a constant ongoing characteristic understanding that everybody sins
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We need to be quick to forgive let's look at ephesians 4 32
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Similar passage, but just one more aspect that I want to bring up here It really does when we forgive it shows the work of god within us
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Here here's something that we ought not to I probably said this last week, but just think about this. How about the unforgiving christian the christian who's slow to forgive
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Eager to hold a grudge Looking for that axe handle Listen to ephesians 4 32 be kind to one another tender -hearted
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Forgiving one another as god in christ forgave you Tender -hearted or compassionate is not just a general concept
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But it insists we are emotionally attached to the recipient, right? Isn't that true? We're brothers and sisters in christ
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Those aren't just words that we should throw around If this is a local assembly a local family a local body of christ
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Then how should we live with one another we should think in a loving tender -hearted compassionate way
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We should have a a disposition towards forgiveness Ff bruce said this he said did not jesus himself inculcate the principle of unwearying
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Untiring and unceasing forgiveness until 70 times seven More than that had they not received his forgiveness in far greater measure than they were likely ever to have to emulate in forgiving others
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For he taught the lesson of unlimited forgiveness by example And not only by precept
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In his teaching too. He made it clear that those who seek the forgiveness of god must be ready to forgive others
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God loves the unlovable We think we're scruffy little teddy bears, but we're not Jesus died for the enemies of god
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What right do we have to not forgive those who are our brothers and sisters in christ? They're as adopted as we are.
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They're as forgiven in christ as we are. We have no right to hold back forgiveness Now furthermore, it is an absolute command of our lord to forgive.
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Let's look at matthew chapter 6 This is pretty strong Matthew 6 verses 14 and 15
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And who would read that please matthew 6 verses 14 and 15 from the sermon on the mount.
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Go ahead charlie Okay, so Is the forgiveness of god conditional?
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Is that what that verse is teaching? God on judgment day will say you know what
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I wanted to forgive you, but since you wouldn't forgive others I can't forgive you. Is that what that means? Charlie You're so smart
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Yeah It It really it it's emphasizing the nature of what we are to be as christians
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Listen to what leon moore says he says jesus is saying that to fail to forgive others
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Listen is to demonstrate that one has not felt the saving touch of god in other words
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If you forgive others, then you're demonstrating that god has forgiven you because you understand again,
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I just think we ought to Basically view others through the prism through the lens of the cross through the
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Forgiveness of god in the cross if we think about ourselves rightly as paul did Then we will think about others rightly and about our need to forgive them
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One of the puritans wrote this he said that cannot be a true faith Which does not work by love
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Nor that a true love listen, which does not act in the way of forgiveness You say you love your brother, but you won't forgive him
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One might suppose did we not know the contrary both by experience and observation? That it would at once Or it would be at once the easiest and the pleasantest of all duties
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For the man who professes to have received the forgiveness from god to forgive an offender That in the fullness of his gratitude joy and love for having received the pardon of twice 10 000 sins
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And in the consciousness of his inability to make any adequate returns to god He would hasten to his offending brother and say
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I've had so much forgiven That I freely forgive you all It would seem as if By a kind of moral necessity a forgiven man
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Must be a forgiving man That just makes sense
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And I want to propose to you this morning that one of the things that separates believers from unbelievers is
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Unbelievers not experiencing this forgiveness can do what? They could be as bitter as they want to be they can be as angry at you as they want to be
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Why because they've never experienced that kind of forgiveness they don't know what a Relief it is to have all their sins forgiven
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And having not experienced that They're prone to not be forgiving, but you have no excuse again, jesus in mark 11 25 mark 11 25
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Yeah, charlie Well, that's a great point.
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You know the fact that unbelievers do have the law of god written in their hearts They have some concept of justice.
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They understand Fairness to some degree Right it also brings about and I think this is what charlie's trying to say is it's important that forgiveness of sins be what
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Part of a gospel presentation. It can be ultimately the kind of the switch
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That turns on the light where they just go. Wait a minute I do know that I do wrong things.
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I do know that I sin I need forgiveness of sins I need to be forgiven
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I need to be forgiven Even that idea of forgiving others. Well, how can I truly forgive unless I understand?
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That my sin isn't just against the other person, but it's against god, but I I think that's a good point Um mark 11 25 and whenever you stand praying forgive
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If you have anything against anyone Well, let me read that again if you have anything against anyone
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Maybe not even believer So that your father who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses again the same concept
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But think about this This would seem to indicate to me That if you don't want your prayers to be hindered, right?
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You need to forgive How can you expect to kind of enter the throne room of grace and say, you know what i've been for a recipient of infinite grace
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I have received forgiveness for every sin that i've ever committed But lord i'm coming to you today and I still don't like this person because of what they did to me
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I still can't forgive this or that or the other thing Then maybe you don't get it
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We ought to be a very forgiving people Want to uh another aspect of forgiveness and I This isn't really super clever, but we are not to be sin accountants
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We are not to be sin accountants I remember when I took an accounting class And the reason
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I never became an accountant with all due respect to those who may be uh accountants here
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Is I I took this class I was really thinking it was a college class I was really thinking it was just going to be boring But I was
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I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life So I took this class and it was probably about six five six weeks into the class
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And I realized that it wasn't just moving numbers from one column to another that there was the possibility of fraud
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Deceit dishonesty and even in my unsaved days. I thought this is not a good place for me to go I I probably shouldn't follow this.
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Uh this path. I just I I'm not cut out for this But we shouldn't be sin accountants what keeping a record of things, you know making a little ledger
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Writing things down making sure we keep track of those who? Owe us because of the sins that they've committed against us.
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Look at first corinthians 13 and I have to say right up front before we read this
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The esv is absolutely abominable here You know lewis brown used to say the esv was the essentially superior version
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And I would agree most of the time but here it's just horrible Who has uh, first corinthians 13 verses 4 and 5?
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And if you have a non -esv, that would be great. Yeah, tom Okay, do we do all that in in verses 4 and 5
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Esv says love is patient and kind love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude It does not insist on its own way.
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It is not irritable or resentful somebody else have a different version there the the word the word uh, it does not
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I I I should I should have cut and pasted another one, but the word for reckoning, uh keeping accounts tracking
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Sins is somewhere in there and Here's here's the problem with that um
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We're not to keep Accounts love does not do that it may be difficult to Forget something that has happened.
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I mean I mentioned the idea that we we just don't forget. You know, our minds are really like hard drives they're like recording devices they remember everything that we've done and seen and said
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But it is possible even if we can't entirely forget it isn't It is possible.
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It's within our power not to bring it up again And it's also possible and this is important not to dwell on it
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Not to dwell on it Why do
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I say that why is that important? If we say that we've forgiven someone has come to us and they say you know what
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I I need your forgiveness Would you please forgive me for da da da and then we say yes, and then what do we do?
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We want to spend time, you know laying awake at night I I do this often The lay awake at night just kind of not being able to sleep not recounting somebody else's sins.
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Anyway We just want to kind of ruminate on it stew on it. And what does that do? What's that?
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It hardens our hearts Well, it does take away time from the lord.
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No question about that It hardens our hearts and even though we say that we've forgiven it indicates that maybe we haven't forgiven in our heart
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We like to think I mean when we do that we really do give the sense that something that the other person has done the sin they've committed against us is worse than Sins that we may have committed
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There's another issue or something that causes us to not forgive as we ought to it really is pride philippians 2 verses 3 and 4
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Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility Listen count others more significant than yourselves
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Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others So, let me ask you this is
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Loving yourself something that you have to work on I'll get i'll get to this later.
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I read uh this article yesterday. It was from a theological journal About uh forgiving yourself and we'll talk about that here.
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Maybe if we have time this morning Uh, if not, we'll get to it next week because I I think it is interesting because it was a christian theological journal
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Really pretty fascinating But self -love is not something that we have to work on what no one ever hated his own flesh but loved it and nourished it
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That's what we do We do think why does paul say don't think too highly of yourself?
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Is it because it's a problem? We don't have What is you know,
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I used to hear this all the time, you know, and i'll say it in the jail
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I would hear this Well, why did you hit him he Disrespected me
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He dissed me He didn't show me the proper respect so I hit him
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I the number of because that was part of my job. I would interview inmates, but before they went to the the um disciplinary cell
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And you know get their side of the story or whatever what my one of my favorite things to do by the way was to See them, you know their little bag of property and see that they had a bible there
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Because a lot of times their issue was with the staff and i'm going you know what while you're there you like that bible Oh, yeah, I read it all the time
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I go study romans 13 because you need to learn what it means to submit to the authorities um
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But this idea here Our problem as a society is not that we think too much of other people
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It's that we think too much of ourselves and what are they doing now in schools, you know, everything in the emphasis is on Self -esteem i'm making sure a child doesn't get their feelings hurt
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In fact now you go to college and guess what? There are a lot of colleges that you can't flunk out of I mean, why should you you're paying fifty thousand dollars a year?
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Why should you flunk out that would lower your self -esteem and what's more important your education or your self -esteem
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Let each of you look not only to your own interests. In other words, don't put yourself first That's our natural thing to do is to look out for ourselves
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It takes what? Paul says to look at others as more important than ourselves it takes
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Really the mind of christ we have to have that we look in the context Forgiving others is a reflection that we are
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Learning we're in the process of becoming humble of thinking of ourselves rightly
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So what does rejecting a plea for forgiveness show? Probably that we're thinking too highly of ourselves
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Probably that we're thinking too highly of ourselves Now I must have I you know what I did. I skipped an entire page.
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I knew I did I hate it when My printer doesn't work at home.
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So now we can Oh Well now i'll go back to where I was talking about in first corinthians 13
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Leon moore said this love keeps no record of wrongs Paul uses this verb and it is logids of my it's accounting language in the sense of reckoning righteousness to a believer
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It's a word connecting with the keeping of accounts noting something down And reckoning it someone love does not take account of every evil thing that people do and hold it against them
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Love and that's the attitude. We are to have takes no account of evil It does not harbor a sense of injury
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We have to let go of this sense of being hurt Now here we get we get to talk about self -forgiveness because I hear this all the time, you know
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I need to forgive myself. I've got to work through issues of forgiving myself. So we'll have a little fun with us
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Now this this is from an article called self -condemnation and self -forgiveness now, it's amazing because I just uh,
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I I received this on friday and I thought this is The lord's providence here Uh, like I said a theological journal, which none of you will have read
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Because it comes from a seminary not the seminary. I graduated from although some around here did graduate from the seminary
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Okay Here here are the seven steps and you have to have seven steps because otherwise you're not biblical step number one
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Step number one receive god's forgiveness So far so good, but you know again self -condemnation and self -forgiveness.
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I don't really understand but step two Repent and repair relationships. You'll notice that each one starts with an r receive god's forgiveness repent repair relationships step number three recognize and replace unrealistic expectations
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I could go into what he means by that, but who cares number four step four reduce rumination. Now, this is a good one
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I like this even though he's using it the wrong way. What's rumination when you ruminate on something?
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What are you doing? Yeah, you're playing replaying it over and over again. And here's what he's saying He's saying step number four stop beating up on yourself
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That's really not the problem. The problem is that we beat up on others Why is reducing rumination if if we just think of ourselves this can be a bad thing why because I think it can lead to kind of a spiritual depression when we just want to play
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Our own sins through our minds and just think I am hopeless Well, you're not hopeless if you've been forgiven you're forgiven
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And here's what I mean when I say sometimes I think it's helpful It's helpful for me because I just look around and I think about I've said this before what
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I wanted to do with my life What my plans were how I wanted to live and then
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I look around at what god wanted for me instead and I think It's not bad for me to replay kind of what
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I wanted and view it versus what god wanted because I think what god Wanted was a lot better for me step number five reach
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Emotional self -forgiveness You have to forgive yourself because against you
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Yourself and you only have you sinned but he doesn't say that but that's just a goofy idea
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Number step number six realize self expected acceptance as one who is flawed but precious
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Anything that has the word precious in i'm automatically suspicious of Number seven resolve to live virtuously with room to fail basically, what he's saying is, you know, i'd get over the fact that you fall down because god
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Is going to forgive you anyway What's wrong with all this, you know self -forgiveness thoughts
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What's wrong with it? It's man -centered. It's me centered. What else is wrong with it?
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What's that It disregards sin has a very low view of sin charlie
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Yeah there it wasn't there christ in the cross was absent excellent journey
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It's a sliding scale, right? Totally subjective. Yep Okay Okay, our our pension is for instant vindication uh
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Bob said this basically let's put it this way Let's say there are two aspects to forgiveness two dimensions or two directions of forgiveness one would be
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Vertical, you know from us to god or god to us. We need to for we need god's forgiveness
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We don't have to forgive god. It isn't us sending forgiveness It's descending forgiveness.
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And the other one is that we need to forgive one another but what's missing in the bible that this man, apparently didn't understand actually, he did say some about he says, uh
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Well, i'll just i'll read what he what he wrote, but you just kind of go. Okay. What's the whole article about then? Listen Nowhere is found
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I must forgive myself. In fact, the author writes this I found that the idea of self -forgiveness was completely absent from scripture
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Though scripture has a lot to say about self -blame Why because we're ultimately responsible for what we do
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Then he goes on to say he says the key to dealing with self -condemnation is to realize that when we sin against others
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We also sin against god Even so I realized how difficult How difficult it is to forgive oneself
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I don't I don't even Get that and again, this was it wasn't just an article in this journal.
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It was the first article I decided okay. It's interesting that a biblical
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Academic journal would start with something that has no scripture as its foundation Why does anyone?
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Especially a for a christian want to find self -forgiveness Why why would we even have that concept?
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charlie great
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Analogy. No, I I happen to know something about stephen kirk's chapman. He and I are no we're not buddies.
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I was But when I when I was first, uh When I first got saved
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I went to the christian bookstore I bought a bible, you know, and I also I I wanted to start listening to some
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Different music and so his was one of the cds I got and so i've been listening to him for a long time and I remember will franklin is one of his sons and he tells a story in his live album about how will franklin, you know was like I think he either got hit with the baseball bat or you know
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One of the other his brother and him were fighting and one of them got tattooed with a baseball bat
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And you know, there was this lying about it and you know Like what and there's the imprint of you know, the baseball bat on On the forehead so a little hard to deny but yeah will franklin
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Stephen kirk's chapman his wife had adopted two chinese girls and um, will franklin was older now and Back in the car up out of the driveway didn't see his sister and I guess will franklin was the one who was closest you know just really had a love for this little girl and he
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Ran her over And so you just go well, okay. Well, what about forgiving yourself for that?
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Well, I think it it really comes down to this Was it a sin?
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No Was it an accident? Yes, what do we have to have a right view of god in times like that?
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Yeah, we do Um, you know a lot of people especially an unbeliever would say what they would blame god
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How could you let that happen or there can't be a god who would let such things happen? For us we say
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The lord giveth and the lord taketh away blessed be the name of the lord. We don't understand these things.
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We don't have to What we have to do is trust that god always does what's right? but this idea of Forgiving ourselves if we understand that no sin
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We we're certainly we receive penalty for sin, right? If a man breaks the law and is caught and he gets sent to prison.
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He's penalized for his sin if I mean there are a lot of examples that that where people can do things that have ramifications on them drug use alcohol use a lot of things
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You know is the key for an alcoholic to forgive themselves? No, it's to understand it's to confess their sin
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Like first john says it's to agree with god about our sin to repudiate it to turn away from it
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But it's never about we we never see forgive yourself in scriptures that idea is wrong our
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Sin is against god. That's the vertical component. Our sin is against others, but primarily it's against god
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Every sin is a violation of his law But self -forgiveness is not something we see.
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I mean, I I think You know, maybe the one I i've heard or read about the most commonly is for ladies who struggle with Uh, they had an abortion when they were younger
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Now that's a that's a very difficult one and um, you know, we can't Can't treat that lightly, but here here's what
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I would say If in light of his life if paul the apostle who did who was guilty of He was complicit in the murder of stephen
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If he could then say, you know what? I'm the lowest of the low. I'm not worthy to be called an apostle
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I'm, none of these things things that the world would say is a self -image problem, but if he could say, you know I am what
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I am by the grace of god and i'm going to expend myself spend myself for the kingdom of jesus christ
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That's how we all need to think. I don't care what sin you've committed You need to think i've been a forgiven of those sins, which
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I committed in ignorance before I even knew You know, maybe I knew there was something wrong. I have the law of god in my heart, but I wasn't thinking
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Uh, I wasn't thinking rightly obviously So what do we do? We can't Putting yourself through purgatory isn't going to bring you any closer to god if we think about If we think about forgiveness rightly if we think about it biblically
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We'll understand a that there's no roman catholic purgatory In other words no place where we need to go to suffer for any sins that we haven't confessed but also
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That there's no purgatory. There's no way that we can do enough that we can suffer enough
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That we can do whatever it is enough to kind of Assuage our our guilt before god it is on the cross
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Everything is on the cross. It's forgiven there If it's a sin
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That jesus died for Then we need to say we need to agree with god that the debt is paid
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Self -forgiveness is not a concept in the scripture, but the forgiveness of god is
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Any other thoughts about self -forgiveness before we? Close this morning. Yeah Well, I mean, yeah imagine that you know, if the only authority you need to forgive you is you
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Well, that seems pretty easy You know i'll wrestle with it for a while i'll decide what my punishment should be
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And then i'm done with it because now I forgive myself You know, I I don't know if you're familiar with the latin phrase.
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I've practiced that it's may absolvo Thank you.
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Thank you to the latin crew over there You know, I forgive myself I absolve myself of my sins
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I I tell myself what my punishment should be and then may absolvo um Yeah Yeah pastor.
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Dave Well, I mean just getting back to the reckoning of sins keeping an account
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You know if the practice of our lives is to be were to be forgivers Then the best thing to do is as soon as somebody asks forgiveness to just be done with it.
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Don't think Just try not to even think about it again because what happens is like you said just imagine
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You know, it's like an open wound just imagine That you would every time you could see your wounds start to heal you just you know
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I'm, just gonna pry this thing back open. I sort of like having it We'd never do that So why is it that we want to do that when there is something that is causing us pain or that's separating us from our brother?
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Or sister in christ. Why do we want to keep that on going? It affects and we'll we'll talk more about this, but it affects our worship
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It affects our companionship our brotherliness and our sisterliness, you know within the body
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It affects everything you can't be here on sunday and you know see somebody and go
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I don't want to talk to that person because they did this I I hope they don't ask me a question.
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I hope you know and just just Want to be shut off from people the objective of being here is to worship god and to fellowship in love
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To look at people and just think I know that none of these people are perfect because i'm not perfect But I know that those who love the lord who are called by his name are forgiven and I want to be a forgiver
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I want to be somebody who's known for not being the sin accountant You know imagine imagine if we had that position in the body, you know
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We have a treasurer and this and the other thing imagine somebody else who's just like, well, it's my job to keep record of sins
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So if you want to know who sinned against who i've got it all written down we would hate that That'd be the worst
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You we'll just make pradeep we'll give pradeep that job so I can say, you know So I could go up to him and say, uh, hey pradeep is charlie
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Has he ever sinned against me and you know pradeep could look it up in the book. That'd be horrible
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Charlie's like uh -oh In light of the forgiveness of god in light of all the sins that we've committed against him
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We have no right to withhold forgiveness and we ought to be eager to forgive one another And to restore those relationships and we'll talk about that next week.
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What are some of the obstacles? To forgiveness, what are some of the things that we really need to to work on to overcome in forgiveness?
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Let's pray our father in heaven father we Just are
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Amazed at the grace that you have extended to us Father if we had only sinned once against you that would be enough to send us to hell forever
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But that's not the case We didn't sin against you once our lives before we were saved
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Just ongoing sin nothing. We did pleased you And now even after we've been saved
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We still sin we still struggle we still Occasionally bite one another father, would you be among your people today restoring relationships giving us hearts that are swift to forgive