Sunday Sermon: Forgive and Be Forgiven (Matthew 6:14-15)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament, and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. The word of our

Lord Christ is written down by the Apostle Matthew. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly

Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your

Father forgive your trespasses. Let us come to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this word this morning, and we pray that you write this upon our hearts that we may understand the forgiveness of God.

And if we have the forgiveness of God poured into our hearts, may we also demonstrate it with one another.

Convict us that we not carry around grudges, for you don't hold a grudge against us.

But in Christ Jesus, our sins have been completely paid for. So therefore, let us not hold grudges against one another.

But in the love and grace of God, forgive each other as you forgive. We pray these things in Jesus' name, and all

God's people said, amen. Thank you. You may be seated. We mentioned these verses last week as we were looking at the

Lord's Prayer, particularly in verse 12 where it says, forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.

But it seemed right for me to come back to these verses again because the

Lord came back to this again. He didn't just leave the statement in what we have in the Lord's Prayer, but stated it again after teaching us how to pray to forgive others their trespasses.

There's a lot of things I think that we might expect other people to give us, but we don't want to give to someone else.

We don't want to have to feel as obligated to give to somebody else. The first of those things is money, I think. I'd like it if somebody else gave money to me, but I don't want to have to give any of my money to someone else.

And sometimes we do that with our giving unto the Lord. I want God to give to me, but I don't want to have to take anything that the

Lord has blessed me with and give it back to Him. Another thing is credit, maybe.

I want somebody to give me credit for the work that I do, but I don't want to have to share the credit with anybody.

Maybe even attention. Somebody show me attention, but I don't have to give you any attention.

Maybe you sit at home thinking, why hasn't so -and -so called me? They haven't thought of me in so long.

I've not received any phone calls from so -and -so. But have you yourself tried to reach out to the person that you're waiting to get a phone call from?

And I think another one of those things we hope that other people will give to us but we don't have to show to anybody else is forgiveness.

We want other people to forgive us, but we don't want to have to forgive anybody. We want other people to show us grace, but I don't have to extend any grace to you.

We love our grudges. And this is not just a worldly thing, my friends.

This is something that I encounter even among Christians pretty regularly.

And not just holding grudges against people who have never asked for your forgiveness.

I even encounter those who hold grudges against those who have asked for forgiveness.

Sometimes those grudges are active, sometimes they're passive. What do I mean between the active grudge and the passive grudge?

The active grudge is you're deliberately saying, I'm not going to forgive that person. I don't trust them anymore, there's just no way that I'm ever going to extend the kind of love and affection and friendship to that person like we ever had before.

It's just never going to happen. So there's an active grudge. And then there's also the passive grudge. The passive grudge is when maybe you did forgive them.

They came to you and said, I'm sorry for what it is that I've done. Will you forgive me? And you say, yes,

I forgive you. And you've done that because you believe it's your Christian duty to do that. Jesus said so, so therefore

I have to do it. But in your heart, you haven't really given that up. So you've said that you forgive them, but there's still kind of something that you're holding onto there.

And you're not willing to let it go. No true reconciliation has taken place.

So we have those active grudges and those passive grudges. And again, this happens against those who have never apologized for sin.

I think that's pretty easy to do. But then there's also those grudges that we hold against those who have asked for forgiveness, and we won't forgive them anyway.

There wasn't that long ago that I had sat down with a man who said about his wife, she has done me wrong, and I am never going to forgive her.

And this man was a Christian man, confessing Christian believer. And I said to him, do you understand that the

Lord has said in Matthew 6, 14 and 15, if you forgive others their sins, your

Father in heaven will also forgive you of your sins. But if you do not forgive others their sins, neither will your heavenly

Father forgive you. Do you understand that this is what Jesus has said about forgiveness?

And he said to me, yes, I know that Jesus said that, but I'm still not going to forgive my wife.

It's as if he was saying, hey, that applies to everybody else. But it doesn't apply to me.

You understand that by holding on to a grudge, you very well could be surrendering entrance into the kingdom of God.

It's that serious. And is your grudge really worth that much to you, that it could cost you eternal life?

This is a serious matter, which is why I come back to that again today.

And I find it significant that Jesus himself came back to this. We looked at the

Lord's Prayer, and we did that over the last several weeks as we've done this study on prayer. And in the

Lord's Prayer, we have an introduction, we have six petitions, and then we have a conclusion.

And of these eight parts to the Lord's Prayer that Jesus gave to us to teach us how to pray, of those eight parts, there's only one part that he came back to again at the end of that prayer.

And it was verse 12, forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.

He goes on to say, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And then right after that, he says, if you forgive others their trespasses, coming right back to that principle of forgiving our debts as we forgive our debtors.

If you forgive others who sin against you, your heavenly

Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your

Father forgive you your trespasses. Every word of the Sermon on the

Mount is hard hitting, and this one especially should not escape us, the seriousness of understanding the need for forgiveness and to forgive.

It should be a regular part of our prayers that we ask God to forgive us our debts.

But we're also asking in our prayers that he give us the ability to forgive our debtors.

I understand that what I am saying to you this morning is difficult. This is not me standing up here and saying to you, forgive, what's the matter with you?

Go out there and forgive people. I don't know why you just don't do it. It can be really hard.

It can be very hard. I've been personally wounded by people before and have sat in prayer and wondered how

I could forgive this person who did this thing to me. I've been in that place before. So this is something that has been just as difficult for me as it would be for anybody.

If I were to tell you my woes and the things that had happened to me in my past, of these things that people had done to me, you would probably sit and listen to my story and say, you're absolutely right.

You have any and all reason to be upset and to not forgive that person.

Maybe that would be your conclusion. But it's not the way that we have been called to. Though the world or maybe even another believer would hand you a license to complain and argue and hold grudges against other people, this is not the way that our

Lord Christ has taught us to live. And so as He has told us, we must forgive others their trespasses.

He has taught us to pray for it. So we must do it. And we do it not of our own accord, but by the very help of God.

It takes the power of the Holy Spirit in our hearts for us to understand the forgiveness that is given to us in Christ Jesus, our

Lord, and also through the power of the Spirit to extend that same forgiveness to other people.

Both of these things are not human works. They are God's work in us.

As the Apostle Paul said to the Philippians in Philippians chapter 1, that it is God who wills and works in you to His good pleasure.

And that's even when it comes to forgiving those who, when it comes to forgiving those who trespass against us.

So we're going to learn a little something about forgiveness today. Now a perfect parable to go along with this is actually a parable that I already gave you last week.

We spent a significant amount of time talking about, forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.

In wisdom, considering how long the sermon went last week, it would have been better for me to save that particular parable until today.

And that parable is the parable of the unforgiving servant. But let me briefly kind of summarize this parable again, and then we'll go on to look at some other passages.

In Matthew chapter 18, the Apostle Peter asked Jesus, how many times am

I to forgive my brother? Seven times? And Jesus responds to Peter, I tell you not seven times, but 70 times seven times.

And then he goes on to share this parable. There was a servant who went to his master and owed him just a crazy amount of money.

There was no way for him to pay it off. And he begged the master, give me a little more time and I'll pay off this debt.

And instead of the master giving him more time, he actually just completely erased the debt. He forgave him of the debt entirely.

Not just I'll give you more time, but you don't even owe anything anymore. A vast sum of money so high, there was no way for the servant to pay it back.

So the master took the loss and forgave the debt. But of course, we know this parable is called the parable of the unforgiving servant.

So what did the servant go out and do? Well, he found another fellow servant who owed him money, but it was much, much less than what he had owed the master.

And he throttled that fellow servant and said, pay me what you owe me. And the fellow servant said, well, just give me a little more time and I'll pay it back.

And the unforgiving servant said no and had him thrown into prison. Well, there were some other servants that saw this taking place.

So they went back to the master and told him what this other servant had done.

This servant that the master had just previously forgiven. So he has that servant brought back to him.

And he says to him, you wicked servant, what is it that you have done? You asked for my forgiveness and I gave it to you, but you could not give it to your fellow servants.

So I'm going to have you bound and thrown in prison. And I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. And that meant that he was going to be in prison for forever.

Because there was no way for him to pay back the amount that he owed, nor was he going to be able to do that from prison.

And at the very conclusion of this parable, Jesus says in Matthew 18, 35, So my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

And recognize there, it's not about like just canceling a debt. Or just erasing off a blackboard a list of sins that somebody has done against you.

Blackboard. Does anybody use a blackboard anymore? A whiteboard now. Erasing the marker list of sins that you had written down.

It's not just about that, but from your very heart, from the very core of yourself.

You are not holding a person's sins against them. You must forgive from your heart.

Our God is forgiven from his heart. In Psalm 103, where it says,

God has taken our sins and thrown them as far as the east is from the west. And he will remember them no more.

Through the prophet Isaiah saying, I have blotted out your transgressions. Return to me and I will make you new.

Now that doesn't mean that God has forgotten. There's a common saying that we often attach to forgiveness, and that's forgive and forget.

Have you ever heard that said? Maybe you've said it before yourself. It's actually impossible to do. We can't do that. Nor does

God do that. He doesn't forgive and forget. Because as we have listed in the book of Revelation, a day is coming in which we're all going to stand in judgment, and great books are going to be opened, and every person is going to be judged by what is written down in those books.

But if your name is written in the Lamb's book of life, then whatever is written down in the books of the deeds that you have done, even those evil deeds will be canceled.

Because Christ's righteousness will be upon you. So there is a record being kept of everything that we do.

Jesus even said that out of the overflow of your heart, your mouth speaks, and a person will have to give an account for every careless word that they've spoken.

How about that? There's even a registry in heaven keeping track of every word that you've said, or texted, or typed on Facebook.

Those count too. But if we have the forgiveness of God, the good news from the word of God is, those evil things that we have done are not held against us.

It's impossible to forget, and we're not being expected to forget, but we are being expected to not hold against the person the wrong that they have done if we have this attitude of forgiveness in our hearts.

Now, this all sounds well and good. It's easy to say it. It's easy to read it.

It's even easy to recall from memory some of those verses that we have been taught about forgiveness.

It's a lot more difficult to actually do it. What are we talking about when we are using this word forgiveness?

It's always good to define your terms. So what are we even saying when we say you must forgive someone and you must forgive them from your heart?

Well, I was curious when I was doing a study on forgiveness. I was curious to find out what some worldly people have said about forgiveness.

Before I even went to looking at catechism and things in the history of the church that have been said about forgiveness,

I was curious to know what worldly people have said about forgiveness. People who are not believers in God.

They don't believe in forgiveness of sins. What have they said about forgiveness?

It was very interesting to me that a lot of the definitions that I found were really quite biblical. In the book of Romans, we're told that God has written the law upon our hearts.

And so every once in a while, even a worldly person can come up with something right. And when it comes to forgiveness,

I think we know what we want when we're asking for someone's forgiveness extended to us.

And so it's from that expectation that we're able to come up with a pretty decent definition of what forgiveness is.

When I did a Google search of this, this was the first article that I came across, and it was written on a university's website.

You might be kind of shocked, actually, to find out which university this was. But this is what they had on their website about what forgiveness is.

What is forgiveness? Psychologists generally define forgiveness as a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward another person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness.

Just as important as defining what forgiveness is, though, is understanding what forgiveness is not.

Experts who study or teach forgiveness make clear that when you forgive, you do not gloss over or deny the seriousness of an offense against you.

Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, nor does it mean condoning or excusing offenses.

Though forgiveness can help repair a damaged relationship, it doesn't obligate you to reconcile with the person who harmed you or release them from legal accountability.

That's a pretty decent definition of forgiveness, wouldn't you say? And this was from a very secular college that had written this definition of forgiveness down on their website.

It doesn't mean forgetting, and in fact, even the person who has wronged you is still going to be morally obligated to pay the penalty for a crime, if that's what it is that they have done.

And so the Lord says the same thing in the scriptures. If we were to come to a biblical understanding of forgiveness,

I would say very simply that forgiveness is this. It means to absorb the wrong.

Now, what does that mean? Maybe that needs a definition in itself. Well, Jesus has already taught us something about forgiveness in the

Sermon on the Mount, even before we get to this section where he says, if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly

Father will also forgive you. If you still have your Bible open to Matthew chapter 6, look back at chapter 5 verse 38.

Just a few verses earlier, chapter 5 verse 38. And it's in verses 38 through 47 that Jesus taught on retaliation and loving your enemies.

You remember these passages, surely. Jesus says in Matthew 5, 38, you have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.

And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

Already, Jesus is teaching us something here about forgiveness. If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Now, you would probably be completely justified that if somebody were to smack you on the cheek, you turn around and you smack them on the cheek right back, right?

Eye for an eye here. You hurt my cheek, I'm going to hurt your cheek. And then that probably escalates the situation.

Now you've struck them, well, they're going to strike you back. And it just kind of builds and turns into an all -out brawl. So Jesus says not to respond this way.

But if someone strikes you on the cheek, turn to him the other also. You're actually absorbing the wrong.

And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

You're absorbing the wrong and even showing kindness to the person who did you the wrong.

As we were studying these things in Matthew 5 verses 38 through 47, we also considered what the

Apostle Paul wrote in Romans chapter 12 verses 17 through 21. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves. Leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written,

Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Now, we love those passages. And I even hear worldly people, secularists, people who don't fear

God, who don't worship Jesus, or maybe they say they love Jesus, but they have like a Gandhi version of Jesus, right?

He was just a great philosopher, but they don't actually believe he is the Son of God or who the

Bible says that he is. And I've had people, even who think of Jesus in this way or don't think of Jesus as anything at all,

I've had them say to me, Matthew 5, 43, You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Even people who don't go to church know that passage.

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. The reason why they'll quote that verse to you, though, is because that's the way they want you to act.

But they don't believe that they have to act that way. Are there many of us that do that too?

I want you to act that way, but that doesn't mean that it applies to me.

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. This is a very attitude of forgiveness, to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

I think a lot of times we kind of have this idea or this understanding of forgiveness as being this ritual that takes place.

What do I mean by that? Well, you've done wrong. You go to another person and you ask them to forgive you.

You say that you are sorry. They extend forgiveness to you. And then, boom, the ritual has been completed and forgiveness has been extended.

But a lot of times, this never actually takes place. And on most occasions in your life, when you believe that you have been wronged by somebody else, you're never going to have them come to you and ask for forgiveness.

Should you show them forgiveness anyway? Yes, you should. For as the

Lord is saying to us here, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Do not take vengeance into your own hands.

For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. This is trusting in God that He is going to take care of all of these things.

And notice that in all of this, it is not saying the person who did wrong to you is not really wrong.

There's still going to be a penalty for the wrong that they've done. But who's the one who ultimately judges for that penalty?

God is the judge. And He will repay. So He is the one whom we must entrust ourselves to.

Consider that this is the very way that Jesus treated those who reviled Him. In 1

Peter 2, 21 through 25, it says, For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in His steps.

He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled,

He did not revile in return. When He suffered, He did not threaten.

But Jesus Himself continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly,

His Father in heaven. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By His wounds you have been healed. If there was anyone who ever had a right to judge the people who showed

Him wrong, it was Jesus. And if there's anyone who had the ability to call down the very armies of heaven upon those people who did evil to Him, it was

Jesus. And yet, what do we hear Jesus say from the cross when

He was looking down upon those who had put Him there? He said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

How much more is it upon us to extend forgiveness to others who have wronged us?

Even when they don't come to you and ask for it, do you realize that when Peter, who was writing this, by the way, 1

Peter chapter 2 that I just quoted from, when Peter denied that he knew

Jesus three times, have you ever noticed that we never see an exchange happen in the

Bible where Peter comes to Jesus and says, God, I'm sorry, please forgive me?

What do we see as a result of that? When Peter realized what he had done, it says that he went out and wept bitterly.

And at the end of the book of John, the last exchange that we have there is between Peter and Jesus.

Jesus says to Peter, Peter, do you love me? And Peter says, yes,

Lord, I love you. And Jesus says, then feed my sheep. A second time he asks him,

Peter, do you love me? Peter says, Lord, you know that I love you.

And Jesus says, then feed my lambs. And a third time he asks him,

Peter, do you love me? And Peter says, and by this point, the way that it's written there in John, it just kind of makes me wonder if Peter was feeling truly convicted in knowing what was going on here.

I denied you three times, you're asking me this question three times. And so Peter earnestly before the

Lord says to him, Lord, you know all things, search my heart, you know that I love you.

And Jesus says, then tend my flocks. Jesus graciously reinstated

Peter to this calling that he had given to him to preach the gospel to the world.

Even though we never see in scriptures this formal exchange that we all expect to have at some point.

Forgive me, I'm sorry, I forgive you. Sometimes that doesn't happen.

And yet we still must show grace anyway. Now that's not permission for you to not ever have to ask anybody forgiveness for your sins.

If you know that you've done wrong, then you must go and you must ask for forgiveness.

In Mark 11, 25, Jesus says, whenever you stand praying, forgive. If you have anything against anyone, so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you of your trespasses.

And earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that if you have done your brother wrong, or you know your brother has something against you, leave your sacrifice at the altar, go and make peace with your brother and then come back and offer your sacrifice at the altar.

So if you need to ask forgiveness for something wrong that you've done, then you must do that.

But don't obligate or hold people to a set or a list of expectations that you might have for them, which is not really ever very realistic anyway.

Because when it comes down to it, you don't actually know what another person needs to do to absolve the wrong that they've done.

You might think you know, but you really don't know the depth or the severity of the wrong that they've done.

Or maybe you even think the wrong that has been done against you is worse than it really was. We don't have a tendency to do that, do we?

Like over -inflate things as being worse than they really are. There's a lot of that going on in our culture right now as well.

In fact, what you see a lot happening within society is that one group of people is saying, this other group of people did me wrong, and this other group of people has to make it right.

I don't really know how they can make it right, but they have to make it right. And I don't have to extend grace or forgiveness.

I'm not even going to promise that once they've accomplished this thing, which I'm saying, I don't even know how they can accomplish it, that I'm going to let it go.

But I'm just saying, I'm a victim and they've done me wrong, and they have to be the ones to figure this out.

Now, as I explain this scenario, you may be sitting there and you might be thinking to yourself, I know which issue

Gabe is talking about when he gives this particular scenario. Are you sure? Because this actually applies to a lot of things.

This is the way of our society. I'm a victim. This person or this party did me wrong.

They owe me, but I don't have to forgive them or show them grace. We see that constantly throughout our society.

And yet this is not the way that we are supposed to be, but we are supposed to show forgiveness and grace to one another.

Philippians 2, verses 14 through 16 say this, do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.

Do all things without grumbling or disputing. Is that what you see going on in our culture?

You see a lot of grumbling and disputing. We're not supposed to join in the fray and add to the noise and the commotion, but rather as blameless and innocent children of God, without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, we are to shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.

See these grudges and things that we hold onto, they bring death. There's even kind of a dungeon room that you might have in your heart where you've got a person chained up down there.

And every once in a while you like to meditate on that grudge, that hate that you have for that other person.

And so it's like you descend down into that dungeon and you find them chained there and you beat on them for a little while until you feel better about it.

And some have said that when it comes to holding grudges, you're hurting no one but yourself. You're certainly hurting yourself, but you are also hurting the person that you are holding the grudge against.

Maybe that justifies your actions. Maybe you feel good about it. But again, it is not the way that our

Lord has told us to be. And if this is how much we're going to love our hate, then when we stand before God one day in judgment, what we may hear from Him is, depart from me,

I never knew you. When we read this here, to forgive others their trespasses and your heavenly

Father will also forgive you. Don't take this legalistically. Don't take this as a matter of,

I have to do this in order to be saved. Like if I want God to forgive me my sins, well then

I better go out and start forgiving a bunch of people. Hey, there we go. I've forgiven everybody. Now God give me some forgiveness.

See, that would be salvation by works. That's not what we're arguing for here. That's not even what Jesus is saying.

It is not by our works that we are saved, but rather our works are a demonstration that we are saved.

If you know that Jesus has forgiven you, then you must also forgive.

If the grace of God has been poured into your heart through Jesus Christ, our

Lord, then what's going to come from you is grace. You will show that same love and forgiveness toward other people that God has shown to you.

And if you don't show that, if you're not going to be forgiving and gracious toward other people, then you're probably demonstrating that you don't actually have any forgiveness to give.

Because God has not really forgiven you. Now let's apply this in some practical ways.

As I'm talking about this, I'm talking about forgiveness here. Maybe you're sitting there and you're saying, well, Pastor Gabe, what if someone said a bad thing about me?

Well, that would be kind of like the least, I think, of offenses that somebody might levy against you.

But let's say that's happened. Let's say somebody did a bad thing toward you or said a bad thing about you.

They said a lie about you to somebody else. They gossiped about you behind your back toward another person.

Maybe they compromised your trust by sharing a secret that you had expected them to keep, and then they've broken that trust and shared it with somebody else.

If they come to you and ask for forgiveness, what should you do? You should forgive them. If the offense was done one time,

I would say that it probably shouldn't even violate the trust that you have, depending on the severity of what it is that they've done.

But if it becomes a repeat offense, if they continue this over and over again, as Jesus illustrated in Matthew 18, you still must forgive, but it might be foolish of you to trust that person with any more secrets, right?

Forgiving doesn't mean that now you're just restored back to the position that you had before, because we still must consider these things in wisdom.

But it does mean that you absorb the wrong. You're not trying to retaliate against that person.

Though they did wrong to you, you're not going to treat them the same way. You show forgiveness. You still consider that person a brother or sister in the

Lord, even if they need some help in a particular area of sanctification in their lives. Amen?

Amen. All right. Pastor Gabe, what if I had a parent who left me or abused me?

Do I still need to forgive my parent? Yes, you do. You still need to forgive your parents.

It's a miserable thing, honestly, to walk through life with grudges against your parents.

And I've seen it happen, and I've seen it really devastate lives because a person chose not to forgive, but rather to hold on to their hurt and their pain and their grudge.

Again, as I said earlier, it's a difficult thing to do. And a lot of times, especially when it comes from a parent, those wounds are very deep -seated.

This is why it takes the power of God. And the forgiveness, it's not magic.

It's not going to happen for you immediately or overnight, that all of a sudden you're just going to feel this burden lifted from you in your heart.

It may take some time, but you still come to the Lord in prayer. As I have repeated over and over again as we've been going through, especially our series on prayer in Matthew 6, what

Peter says in 1 Peter 5, verses 6 and 7, cast all your anxieties upon Him because He cares for you.

Casting all our cares upon Christ. It's a difficult process. Sometimes it takes a while, but you still must work toward that forgiveness toward other people.

Pastor Gabe, what if my spouse cheated on me and we got a divorce?

Do I have to forgive that person? I have to forgive my spouse, and now we're supposed to get remarried?

No, especially if it's in the situation where you've both been divorced, and now you've gotten remarried to other people.

You can't get divorced so that you can get back together. Forgiveness doesn't mean that you even reconcile that marriage and bring it back together again.

But it does mean, once again, that you don't hold the wrong against that other person, and it means that you still consider that person a brother or sister in Christ if they're walking in the

Lord. If they profess to be a Christian, you still must treat them as a brother or sister in the

Lord, even if they had done this evil against you in this way. So yes, you must still forgive even a spouse who has done you wrong.

Pastor Gabe, what if someone committed a heinous crime against me or a member of my family?

I've shared this with you before, but I'm a guy who enjoys true crime. I like to watch true crime shows on Netflix or Prime or wherever it is, that I can find those shows.

I've seen many, many interviews with people who have had horrible crimes done to them, and those criminals have even been caught, and they have paid for their crimes.

And in those interviews, those people will say, I still don't feel like the hurt has been taken away.

Even when a person has done a crime and justice has been done, it doesn't mean that you're just automatically restored.

There's still a hurt. There's still a loss there for the wrong that has been done.

But even in these cases, even in these instances, you still must forgive. I shared a story with you a few weeks ago about a friend of mine who was killed in a drunk driving accident, and his parents forgave the man who killed their son.

And they were good friends of mine for a lot of years until his dad, Steve, just passed away a couple of years ago.

But even, so I've seen this personally, I've had personal experience in this, of seeing people who have had crimes done to them and still forgave the person who took something great from them.

And we must have this kind of grace. Because as I said to you last week, it doesn't matter what anybody has done to you.

It is still not as great as the wrong that you have committed against God. And yet God has forgiven you of your sins by faith in Jesus Christ.

And so you also must forgive others their sins. Now, there's going to be many situations in your life where you're never going to see justice at all.

Somebody has done you wrong, and you're never going to see a wrong come back upon them.

Or you're never going to see that situation righted. Or they're never going to be convicted over what it is that they've done to you, and they're never going to come to you and ask for forgiveness.

That's many of the occasions in which you have been wronged over the course of your experience.

And yet, especially, and even here, you must ask forgiveness, and you must forgive, no matter what it is.

You've heard me say something before that I'm going to say here again, and then

I'm going to put it in a different way. Something that I've shared with you before is, you are never going to perfectly confess every sin that you've committed against God.

And yet, on the day that you stand before Him in glory, if you are in Christ Jesus, He's going to welcome you into heaven anyway.

Any of you remember me saying that before? Those of you who've heard me preach before? Thank you to our guests for being here today.

Let me put this to you again and slightly shape it another way.

You are never going to perfectly forgive every one of the wrongs that they have committed against you.

And yet, on the day that you stand before God in judgment, if you are in Christ Jesus, He is going to welcome you into heaven anyway.

We have no perfect forgiveness to offer. We must forgive, but even we don't forgive perfectly.

But God is a perfect forgiver. And by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for our sins, when

Jesus said, it is finished, it was finished. Every sin atoned for, and God holds no record of wrong against you, if you have faith in Jesus.

Now, as we started looking at this today in Matthew 6 verses 14 and 15, I said that I had already had taught from that parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18.

But there is one parable that I want to close with that I think helps to illustrate this even more.

Our understanding of needing to ask for forgiveness and also give forgiveness. Turn with me to Luke chapter 7.

Turn over to Luke chapter 7. We're in Matthew. There's Mark. There's Luke. Luke chapter 7.

And it's in Luke 7 beginning in verse 36 that Jesus tells a parable of two debtors.

I'm going to begin in verse 36 here with an exchange that Jesus is having with a

Pharisee and a woman who comes to him to anoint him. Luke 7 beginning in verse 36.

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him. And he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at table.

And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the

Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster flask of ointment and standing behind him at his feet, weeping.

This woman began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.

Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were truly a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.

And Jesus answering said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you.

And the Pharisee answered, say it, teacher. And Jesus told this parable, verse 41.

A certain money lender had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii and the other 50.

When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now, which one of them will love him more?

And Simon answered, the one I suppose for whom he canceled the larger debt.

And he said to him, you have judged rightly. Then turning toward the woman,

Jesus said to Simon, do you see this woman? Now, this is really interesting in this exchange.

The Pharisee abhors this woman because she apparently has a very low reputation in the community because of whatever sin, that's not illustrated for us here, but whatever sin she's committed, she's a sinner and the

Pharisee will have nothing to do with her. And yet, what is Jesus making him do? Look at the woman.

Look at her. She is not beneath you. I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet.

But she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.

You gave me no kiss. As it says in Romans chapter 16, as Paul is closing that letter to the

Romans, he says, greet one another with a holy kiss. I think in light of COVID -19, we're not going to practice that.

But this was a very common custom among believers at this particular time. And so for Jesus to say to Simon, it was a pretty big deal.

You gave me no kiss when I came into the house. There was no greeting. But from the time

I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.

You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.

Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many.

Once again there, forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Because I think that it needs to be necessary to know exactly what it is that has been done.

So forgiveness can be offered. Amen. And so Jesus even acknowledges, you're right in calling this woman a sinful woman.

She is a sinner. Her sins are many. Jesus even illustrating there, I know more about her than you do.

But her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much.

But he who is forgiven little, loves little. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven.

Then those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins?

And verse 50, Jesus said to the woman, your faith has saved you.

Go in peace. My friends, it is necessary for you to know that you have sinned against a holy

God. Your sin is great, but you have a great

Savior. He is Jesus Christ the Lord, who gave up His throne in glory, took on human flesh, lived among us a perfect life that we could not live, and died the death that we were supposed to die, shedding

His blood on the cross for our sins. He was buried in a borrowed tomb on the third day

He rose again, so that everyone who believes in Him will be forgiven their sins and will have everlasting life with God.

Ask forgiveness. He will forgive you. And then finally, hear in the word of Christ.

Go in peace. Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.

For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.

On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, growing together in Christ when we understand the text.