March 6, 2016 Topical: Christian Character by Pastor Josh Sheldon

be seated I Have a subject this morning more than I have a passage to give to you or to preach to you my subject this morning is one that is

Near and dear to your heart in fact if you're a Christian if you by faith in Jesus Christ What he accomplished on the cross if by all that you claim to be a child of God Then my topic this morning is about a trait of yours that must be absolutely central to your walk with God My subject this morning is one near and dear to your heart because it's near and dear to the heart of God There are few categories in the study of God what we call theology proper that will expose the heart of God So much as this morning subject.

There are few that expose our hearts as readily or as thoroughly as The subject this morning the subject this morning is one that if lacking in relationships relationships will deteriorate

My subject this morning is one that when you meet people in counseling and almost every pastor.

I know will affirm this The beginning of the trouble is a lack of this this thing that I'm preaching about today

Few things will cause more damage than this being lacking Especially between a husband and wife, but also as we'll see amongst the brethren amongst believers in Jesus Christ So important is this to God so central to the person and work of his son

Jesus So critical to our life in the Spirit of God is this one topic that it if it's not exhibited

It was not in your day -to -day experience And if you find it only rarely displayed if you give it out a little begrudging tidbits

If in your heart you resent this duty It is so important that the

Apostle would say then examine yourselves as to whether you're really in the faith test yourselves

I speak this morning of forgiveness a Bestowal upon unworthy sinners by the

God of love which must in turn be showered upon one another I Can think of few if any commands of our

Lord that are so connected to such severe warnings as this one That the people of God be a forgiving people

Well Steve finished reading to you from Ephesians 4 32 should stand to us as a stark warning

Be kind to one other be tender -hearted forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you

We could put an equal sign The way you forgive each other is to be equal to the way

God Almighty in Christ on the cross Forgave you

It's a high duty, and there's no parentheses. It says and oh by the way

I'm only human. Oh Did you forget that? I'm not perfect. I'll do my best. There's nothing like that as God in Christ Forgave you let these words as Jesus says sink down into your heart as God in Christ forgave you

This is so core to God that when he declared himself to Moses as he passed by him

That it comes first in order Listen to what he said this is

God speaking directly of himself to Moses as he had him in the cleft and he passes by him

And he's declaring the name of the Lord God This is a watershed moment in redemptive history

This is what he says the Lord the Lord God Merciful and gracious long -suffering and abounding in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving

Iniquity and transgression and sin by no means clearing the guilty Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation

Now he does punish sin his holiness demands that iniquity not be ignored, but what comes first What does he declare before?

the severity of his judgment his mercy His grace his

Patience his goodness his truth, and how do these qualities play out? He says it right here.

He keeps mercy for thousands. He forgives iniquity and transgression and sin What are we speaking of here?

Iniquity is our nature. We're born children of wrath Transgression is our willing violation of his revealed person and will sin is our constant diet

We stand opposed in the natural man to God Yet in all this in all this there's forgiveness in him as the psalmist puts it for us

If God's holiness explains his loathing of sin See in his self -revelation of Moses how his holiness also explains his willingness to forgive

Never forget that God's forgiveness comes in this declaration before his judgment of sinners

Mercy before severity Forgiveness before judgment

These are not opposed to each other God is one

He never contradicts himself Just see the order of this revelation

Prophet Isaiah extols God's holiness as few other prophets yet near the end of his book He quotes

God is saying I've stretched out my hands all day long to rebellious people who walk in a way That is not good according to their own thoughts.

I've stretched out my hands to them As it says at the end of Chronicles he rose up early in the morning and sent prophets to them to declare to them their errors and to declare to them

God's Willingness to hear repentance to forgive in a word

Now look at how important this is to our Lord Jesus Christ this morning. He's our

Savior. He's our Lord He's our master. He is the image to which we must aspire. He's the Lamb of God who took away our sin.

I Won't look to him on this subject on this topic on this characteristic

That we absolutely must if we are Christ's Display, it must be ours.

It must be our nature Ephesians 1 7 just a chapter before a couple chapters before what

Steve read to you from Ephesians 4 In him which is in Jesus Christ in him.

We have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins According to the riches of his grace.

Let's understand first about Forgiveness that there can be no salvation without forgiveness.

It's how important this topic is Without forgiveness. There is no salvation

Without forgiveness we stand condemned for our sins They must be forgiven if we are to be able to have any hope for eternity

That's the first point redemption Redemption in him we have redemption, which is the forgiveness of sins

It speaks of that transaction whereby we as sinners were purchased by Jesus Christ when he suffered for our sins on the cross

He redeemed us He bought us Not with money or anything so cheap or profane but as Peter puts it with the precious blood of God's Son Jesus Christ He suffered for our sins on the cross.

He bore our sins in his own body as he hung on the tree again as Peter put it

As long as sin remains unaccounted for there could be no peace with God But your iniquity says

Isaiah your iniquities has separated you from your God and your sins have hidden his face from you

So that he will not hear He's of two pure eyes and even behold sin.

It is so far beyond intolerable to him that words fail us. I Can't describe it

But consider the perfections of God Consider God in his holiness his righteousness his justice and his mercy

We could go on and on think of that God if we could but glimpse the depths of these

We could then just begin to understand how awful sin really is

And if we could just begin to understand this if we could expand our minds for a moment and look into the heart of God Then we might start to realize the infinite worth of forgiveness

What does God forgive iniquity and transgression and sin and all manner of rebellion against him

All that is opposed to his person in his nature all that we did and still do that keeps us from his presence

Iniquity separates us our sin makes him unwilling to even look at us. So ugly so detestable so egregious

So odious is sin to him yet.

This is exactly what he forgives This is exactly what free forgives

Those willing activities of ours Comforting from the heart and residing in our mind going from mind or hand as we stretch out to the sins that we know we ought not to do

Things that are absolutely diametrically opposed to his nature and his word And yet this is what he forgives

The Psalms speak for God like this Psalm 103 verses 10 through 12 He has not dealt with us according to our sins and we should stop right there and just bow down say hallelujah

He has not dealt with us According to our sins nor punished us according to our iniquities for as the heavens are high above the earth so great is his mercy toward those who fear him as Far as the

East is from the West so far as he removed our transgressions from us speaking of forgiveness speaking of this nature of God That as it were looks for cause to forgive

It doesn't come cheap it doesn't come easy it came at the price of his only begotten

Son It came at the price of Jesus Christ who gave himself a sacrifice for us

He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him He became sin when he was what

Isaiah describes in chapter 53 He was smitten by God and afflicted he was wounded for our transgressions

He was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement for our peace was upon him and by his stripes

We are healed if you read a verse like that you can forgive the ancients that they didn't see the cross

But that this speaks of a man sent by God to bear the sins of his people this seems clear enough

As Paul says in Romans 8 for what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh

God did by sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin.

He condemned sin in the flesh So we were saying here is simply this how important is forgiveness

Except for forgiveness there can be no salvation except for forgiveness

We stand before God clothed in our sins Only in Jesus Christ did sin meet its match as the love of God for sinners brought an emptying of his wrath

Against us upon his son only in Jesus could be found one who was tempted at all points as we are yet without sin and only by faith in him and His perfect and complete work on the cross

Can be found forgiveness from God That's how important this is if the first point is that there could be no salvation without forgiveness

Our second point is really much the same But now I want to look at our experience of God's forgiveness in Jesus Christ You can see how closely related these two points really are

I'd put it this way people who do not forgive others cannot claim to know God's forgiveness themselves

This is what scripture teaches us People who do not forgive others cannot claim to know

God's forgiveness themselves You read from the

Bible everything's important isn't it there's no word of God that is meaningless Lacking in value he has some statements

Flow to the top don't they the statement. I just made doesn't quote a scripture verse

But I do believe with all my heart That I give the sense of many of the warning type verses we have regarding the subject if you don't forgive

You cannot claim to know God's forgiveness It's midpoint made by both

Jesus and the Apostles I'll start with Jesus just one example here when he was at Simon's house this woman comes in there

And she's only called a sinner. She must have been a prostitute She bursts in she anoints the

Lord's feet, and then she washes them with her tears in her hair his host a

Pharisee named Simon he thought ill of all this and Jesus says knowing his thoughts he said therefore

I say to you her sins which are many are forgiven For she loved much, but to whom little is forgiven the same loves little

Do you see what's at work here? Do you see what Jesus is saying is at work here in this woman who came in and anointed him in that way?

Our love is gauged by our apprehension of God's forgiveness I Should add something to that statement our love for God our appreciation for what

God did for us in Jesus Christ the truth of our statement that we've been forgiven is

Gauged by what the way we dispense forgiveness

It's a very simple equation Simon this

Pharisee there. He should have looked upon this woman in a couple of different ways first He should have looked upon her with the eye of God He should have seen her repentance in light of all the measures that God took even in the older dispensation to provide atonement for her

That's first, and I think all of us can learn here Whatever sinner we encounter let none be counted so low let us consider

No people no person as being less worthy of God's love than myself can we think of the

Lord Jesus Christ suffering and Say he needed to suffer more for that one than for myself

We cannot think of the sins that we look to When we look at others

Especially we're comparing ourselves. I mean did your neighbor betray his wife a few sins are worse than God's sight than that Are you bit better are you better than him because you haven't done the same

I Tell you I tell us all you me we we are no better than that one

Don't rank yourself above him. What trials did he have in his life, which you did not how much better Did your parents prepare you for such a temptation?

Do you know as God said to Job tell me if you know

Why with your many advantages in life, why do you indulge any sin at all? My theologically the answer is easy for all of sin and fallen short of the glory of God But look at that one to whom it's so easy to compare ourselves and think that God's forgiveness was more

Needed by him than by yourself look at him and say there, but for the grace of God Go I Do not think that your sins cause less agony to our

Lord than his did or anyone else's Let your love for God and for others be Expanded by the realization that you are no better than that adulterer or that murderer or that thief or what or whomever

Think of your sins as reaching to heaven like that woman who came in and no no to Jesus feet

Think of your sins Reaching to the altar of God and then like she did love much

Love the Savior who willingly took your burden upon himself love fellow sinners who joined you in raising the cross

This is so important where there is no forgiveness. There is no salvation if you can't forgive then the root cause may be

That you have not been forgiven We need to look in carefully stringently severely

Do we hold grudges? Jesus will call that hating your brother in your heart, and we know what he says about that in the

Sermon on the Mount Do you do that do I do that do any of us do that now?

I guess we all do to a point We are fallen humanity Can we soften this just a little bit

I? Shudder to soften it at all But can we just a teeny little bit and say is that your practice is that your daily diet in life the whole grudges?

to withhold forgiveness Now then we need to look carefully within and Ask myself

Do I truly know that God in Christ had forgiven me? the

Lord's Prayer ends with amen but then Jesus immediately adds the Implication of the entire prayer for the if you forget for if you forgive men their trespasses your

Heavenly Father will also forgive you But if you do not forgive men their trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses

Here's a sobering words Those who do not forgive are not forgiven those who think they've been forgiven little have but little appreciation

For what God has done for them in Christ. They have not thought much about sin They've not thought carefully about their own sin

They've not thought at all about what it costs Christ to procure forgiveness of those sins

They love so little that they're very forgiveness and remember how closely forgiveness is tied to salvation

It is legitimately to be questioned And I think that sinful woman who washed the

Lord's feet would understand this The parable of the unforgiving servant says much the same thing in Matthew 18.

I Don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but it's a very important lesson I mean a servant is called to account by his master over knee over an enormous debt

Impossible in a thousand lifetimes to pay and his only recourse is to beg for merciful patience He doesn't ask he dare not ask that the debt be canceled

He asked for patience Which is absurd patience is not going to help him pay this debt

He owes it the creditor must be paid. He falls on his knee. He pleads for patience master I patience with me.

I will repay all and it's impossible. It's just impossible

Don't twist your mind into a knot trying to figure out how much money ten thousand talents then would be worth today

It doesn't matter just put this in place of all that calculation impossible You can't pay the debt

And of course the master's answer is familiar then the master that servant was moved with compassion released him and forgave him that debt and The servants answer is equally well known

He found us fellow servant who owed him a lot of money But trifling compared to what he had just been forgiven a demanded to be repaid immediately

Took him by the throat saying pay me what you owe And then he hears the same thing that he had said of just a little bit before Have patience with me and I will repay all and he would not but went through him into prison till he should pay the debt

Why did he not forgive as he had been the answer is simple because he put no value on his forgiveness

Or he thought himself more deserving of forgiveness Because I meant to pay my debt, but I know this guy wouldn't all number of reasons it comes down to this

He put no value of what he had so mercifully received He thought he deserved to be forgiven

Maybe he thought his debt was just a small fraction of the master's wealth. And so it was an easy thing for him to forgive it

You what would it mean to a billionaire to forgive a couple of thousand dollars that sort of calculation maybe?

As too often for all of us we find reasons not to forgive we say well I haven't heard what I deemed to be true repentance.

This sot hasn't asked me properly I'm not ready to confer until I'm satisfied with this or with that and so we hold their throat and we squeeze the life out of Them never remembering the debt so fully set aside for me

This comes by comparing ourselves to the wrong people If we should compare it all which I think you know, we shouldn't

We should consider our own sin in the light of Christ's perfection. Not not someone else's lack Paul said

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief Of whom

I'm chief. I stand in the front row We forget how many times

Jesus said your sins are forgiven. We don't ponder the fact that not one. This is stunning

Let let the legalist let the one who demands a set procedure to be followed with specific words

Who really wants only to see the other grovel and beg? like the servant in the parable ignoring the master representing

God Take notice of how many times

Jesus Christ says Your sins are forgiven. I Mean here the master representing

God interrupts the man's self effacement We need to take note that not one of those blessed by our

Lord's gracious words Your sins are forgiven Actually asked to be forgiven

Think of this a moment Jesus Christ of his own accord Representing the entire nature of God because he was

God Your sins are forgiven May we never be found making repentance more difficult for others than God did for us

Let it never be said of us that we stingily dole out forgiveness as if it cost us something

May cost God his son to make available the means of forgiveness There's his 10 ,000 talents.

What does it cost us by comparison at? Best a couple of denarii to use the

Greek accounting of money But ultimately I Think the core cause of our unwillingness to forgive is an implicit belief that he or she is a worse sinner than me.

I Owe so much less to God than they do

And even if I owe 10 ,000 talents, and they have few pennies I insist on seeing the debt. I owe as a trifling matter

Certainly my forgiveness was easier for the other to confer than theirs was we have this kind of a thought process

Am I exaggerating just for effect? only a little Only a teeny little bit.

This is the way we think If we're gonna understand forgiveness

If we're gonna forgive the way we need to forgive the way Christ insists We forgive the way the

Apostle says if you don't forgive this way You better look to see if you even know you've been forgiven that important How many relationships between friends brothers sisters husband wife parents children have been ruined?

Because this gets left behind We do it by getting this false view of ourselves

Put ourselves in the position that Paul says Christ Jesus came to save sinners of whom

I fill in your name. I am the chief I stand first in line. Don't think of yourself as a less sinner than the worst person you could think of Let's think of some really bad people

We can't let ourselves off the hook I won't think of some really bad people Because we let ourselves off the hook by comparing ourselves to pretty bad people

I Want you to think of Adolf Hitler? I want to think of a man like him standing before God With the carcasses of tens of millions of people behind him six million

Jews wiped out How many gypsies? How many homosexuals?

How many communists how many Slavs just because of who they were getting in his way

Think of him standing before God trying to account for all those corpses

Think of Jeffrey Dahmer the so -called Milwaukee cannibalist, I won't go into any detail at all about him gruesome horrible

Serial criminal in the worst way imaginable think of him standing before God Now take all those sins and add to them whosoever you want solemn pull pot

You might think of a Bernie Madoff whose scam ruined the lives of many many people

Standing before God Take all those sins Add to them your favorite villain in history add those sins to it

Now you're standing before God and those are all on your account This is what sin looks like in God's sight

We don't get to say my sin was just a little one We take all those terrible people in history add up all their sins put them all together and lay them on my account

That's the sin you were forgiven I Think that might Lose the restriction in the flow of forgiveness from ourselves if we understand that I'm not just being melodramatic here

You need to see sin the way God sees sin And we need to stop thinking that my sins are lesser

Christ suffered a little bit less for me the first 20 minutes were for me and the rest of those hours were first next guy

I Want to go on a little bit more with that parable so when the fellow servants saw what had been done

They were grieved they came told their master would have been done and his master after he called him said to him you wicked servant

I forgave you all that debt because you begged me should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you as Master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him

Now this teaches the salvation can be lost No, that is not what it teaches

It teaches that those who know nothing of forgiveness to others know little or nothing of God's forgiveness to them

That's what Jesus talked about it's a parable and he's not making a statement about how we can be taken out of salvation and thrown into perfidy or back again

I've called that before a neurotic kind of Christianity an unbiblical kind of Christianity.

It's a parable but this truth comes comes out of it and It's confirmed in so many places by Jesus in his own words not speaking parabolically

Speaking plainly by the plain meaning of the Apostles such as what was read to you from Ephesians by Steve a little bit ago those who know

God's forgiveness are forgiving They see their sins realistically which helps us to see other people's sins realistically which eases the flow of conferring this forgiveness

Jesus last words at the end of his model prayer When he taught us so my

Heavenly Father also will do to you each if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses

Jesus does not mean that a saved person can work themselves out of God's grace But he does say and this is a point that bears much repetition

That our reception of forgiveness is both proved and gauged by the way we forgive others so How willing are you how willing are we to forgive?

How fully do you forgive? For each question the calculus is the same How did

God forgive me? Do I hold back just enough to Lord it over this person?

Is that what God did to you? Does God say I've removed your sins as far as East is from the wool

Almost but I've got this one little thing. I refuse to forget because it really bugged me course not

That'd go against everything God reveals of himself in Scripture and yet How are we supposed to forgive?

Just like God as God in Christ forgave you period truly the end of the story

No, we can't become unsaved Not even by so on Christian behavior is unforgiveness

But that does not lessen the burden of the Lord's warning so let us forgive as though The fate of our eternal soul depended upon it

If you don't forgive your husband your wife your son your daughter your father your mother

Doesn't mean you're all sudden changed from a saint to a demon that will not happen

Here's how I want to apply this Let us forgive one another as though The fate of our souls depended upon it

The Apostle Paul insists on this Ephesians chapter 4 begins the practical part of that letter after four after three chapters of pure Theology telling us what

God has done for us in Christ his son. He writes be kind to one another Tender -hearted forgiving one another how many times does he need to repeat it how many emphases does he have to make before we get this?

We're dull -hearted. We're dull -minded. We want to hold on to the offense Because it allows us to Lord it over the other person just like God did to you.

No, of course not Even as God in Christ forgive forgive you therefore be imitators of God as dear children

Imitate that master who forgave all in the parable. It's a command from Christ our Lord and from Paul his

Apostle I can think of perhaps one other place where the action Or nature of God is so clearly required to be found in us

When Jesus says therefore you shall be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect Now we are to Be transformed into the image of Christ in all his ways to read the

Gospels to understand Jesus Christ to imitate Him to be like him all we can but think of the broad categories of the nature of God and How many of them are given to us in this way?

This nature of God equals this nature of you this action of God equals this action from you

Jesus said therefore you shall be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect We love to imitate

Christ's holy anger at the temple merchant It's so easy to rebuke others under the guise of edification we just love to show others where they're wrong like Jesus did right and And all those in their time in their place have a part in the relationship

Christians have with each other and Christ is our model in the proper use of such a thing But know well it is forgiveness

That the Christian is to imitate in Christ directly with Jesus In our life, it's a one -to -one correspondence at God as God in Christ forgave you

This is hard Forgiveness is hard.

I mean it demands two things are totally alien to ourselves right love and humility Love and humility,

I think have to come before forgiveness Love as with the woman who was a sinner love as well as with someone who even begins to appreciate what their sin

It was in God's eyes and then humility because to forgive others demands that we align ourselves with them

That sinner that offender who so harmed me that libertarian who knows nothing of holiness of sanctification

Who is no more pious than cattle that sinner who God says is to be forgiven by you

If that is you have any of God's love and knowledge of his forgiveness That he or she is no worse or no better than you

God forgives sinners from the position of complete isolation from their sin God doesn't behold sin.

God doesn't have it near him He's completely different from sin that he forgives.

We forgive fellow sinners as our peers. I Think the clearer we see this the easier it's going to be to follow the

Lord's command To prove our faith in this way. Have you been forgiven by God because of the work

Jesus Christ did on the cross? Has God given you faith to believe that on the cross?

He achieved your forgiveness from his father Do you believe that?

Is that your faith? Is that your hope? Is that your only basis for going before God and knowing that because of what

Christ did your sins are forgiven? And that's why you can stand before a holy

God then forgive

Be forgiving Imitate to others what God has done for you

Do you need a test of your own salvation It's simply this

Are you ready to forgive? There are many long discussions about When do we actually confer or bestow our forgiveness?

Don't we have to wait for the person to repent in certain words to us to say I did this and I repent of it

Or whatever the case is Some of that has its time some of that has its place

Someone could come to us flippantly just shrug their shoulders having done some terrible thing against us. I say well, sorry

Forgive me and yeah, obviously, you know, that's not The kind of thing that the scripture would commend to us

We must hear repentance Yes Jesus and the Apostles command us to seek each other's forgiveness in a word to repent and that demands that we repent specifically of specific sins

But let those who have sinned against us find in us the very heart of God find a heart that remembers that when

God revealed himself to Moses mercy and compassion and tenderness and forgiveness and then the severity

Then the judgment keep the order of these things in our mind. Let those who come to us and Even if they come a little flippantly find that we take

God's forgiveness so seriously That perhaps they would become more sober about it that they see a conviction and say this is not a small thing

Maybe that would be a witness Let them find someone who recognizes their own sin as being as bad and with less excuse than anyone else's

I'm the chief of sinner. I was raised by educated parents in an upper -middle -class home

I have less excuse than anyone for my greed or whatever the case is

Let's have that kind of a mindset And then see if the words I forgive you

Flow from us a little easier and with more conviction Has God forgiven you?

Do you have faith in Jesus Christ that by what Jesus Christ did by putting your hope your trust in him?

By repentance for your sins has God forgiven you? I close with this.

I want you to understand he does not forgive us because we forgive That would be a work

God's not so pleased that we forgive he commands forgiveness, but forgiveness is not the basis for our salvation a more than any other work is

He forgives because of what Christ did on the cross and that alone It's apprehended by faith, which is a gift of God.

Do you see yourself as the chief of sinners as? if you alone

With the corpses of millions upon millions of innocent ruined lives on your account

Do you see yourself as that one standing before God? as The least likely candidate in all history to receive from God's merciful hand the benefits of Christ's sacrifice

That's a humbling thought and it's meant to be as a thought that must lead us to be ready to forgive others

Which by God's Spirit may we do? Amen Lord God, we thank you again for bringing us here

And Lord even when the lessons of your scripture are hard and they go against our nature

Such as the command to forgive I pray father by your spirit You would make us the people that your word

So strongly calls us to be That we father would Look to the cross and the you

Lord would assure us whether we've Actually done business with you by the cross of Jesus Christ or not

Lord make us a people That is ready and willing to forgive and in this reflect the very heart of God Do this for your name's sake help us in this for asking