Forgiveness — Don McClure

Forgiveness as a Commandment from God

Tonight. Matthew chapter 6 verse 14. For if you forgive men their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses.

Moreover when you fast be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance for they Disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast rarely. I say unto you they have their reward. But thou when thou fastest anoint thine head and wash thy face that thou Appear not to fast to men but to thy father which is in secret and thy father would seeth in secret shall reward thee openly Father we do.

Thank you for your word, and we thank you dear Lord for your wonderful love your great desire Lord To be so close to us Lord to think that not only you love us and you've sent your son to die for us Forgiven our sins but Lord the relentless loving way that you have of desiring to take us into a Wonderful deep mature strong relationship with you and to give us Lord great blessing in life great victory over our trials over the battles and Lord you have given to us your word to help us in these things and we ask that you continue to open your word To speak to us to minister to us to strengthen us father.

We thank you for it in Jesus name. Amen. Well here as we continue on in Matthew chapter 6 here in the Sermon on the Mount. There's three areas here that we'll just kind of touch on a little bit here tonight of spiritual life prayer and Fasting and giving a little bit of just that I think ties into it that we've already been going through.

But something there perhaps just to take a moment and to reflect and to remember about the Sermon on the Mount. I don't know how interesting the Bible is to a to a person that isn't a Christian I think it ought to be tremendous reading to anybody, but that's how I think.

But to a child of God that I suppose the Sermon on the Mount ought to be one of the greatest of all things to Read because it is this wonderful short Three chapters that God gives to us to show us great insights Into a deeper and a greater Relationship with him that so many of the struggles and the battles and the things that we have going in on our life Constantly that sometimes we can get wrapped up in for days or weeks or months or years of our life and still not Solve the Sermon on the Mount if we would study it and learn from it.

It gives to us such great keys to take us not only into a deeper relationship with Christ but a more full life a richer life and and Great blessings in many many areas in our in our life. And so here in the Sermon on the Mount though It's really a particularly in chapter 6 to me.

I almost it's it's call it and in my own thoughts life with our father. In fact, there was a I think a TV show when I was a kid life with father something like that. But I suppose if you really want to look at what life with father is all about.

It's Matthew 6 and the whole Sermon on the Mount on it, but particularly your Matthew chapter 6. Not so much life with men here Jesus in the this chapter. He's telling us don't worry about men. Don't worry about living your life before men to be seen him in over and over he said there's this great tendency of people to want to live and to be seen before men and To have the rewards in their life before men to have the greatest experiences of their life before human beings.

Jesus said what a waste of time how we ought to be ones that we want the greatest blessings the greatest victories. To happen in our life before God before our father. That's so much with people and we need not to be we need to not be deceived by those things and.

And looking for victory in that area. We ought to be looking God show me how to have a deeper and more victorious relationship with you. That's where I want to shine. That's where I want to learn. That's where I want to grow and here in the Sermon on the Mount.

It's not so much a list of things of do's and don'ts as much as it's things of which the Lord tells us. This is how I want you to think. I want you to pattern your life. How to let the God, you know work deeply within you and not so much what you know.

But it's who you know and and building that great relationship, you know with the Lord and so here you know the Lord who outlives all the other issues in life wants to take us with him and deep with him and.

So Jesus here is giving us now as we just finished up last week this wonderful prayer the Lord's Prayer or the family prayer whatever you want to call it there as he gives to us a pattern and an approach To God in prayer in the midst of that in the middle of it virtually there.

He gives one little comment there and he says forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And then he goes on after he touches, you know this area. But then after he says, you know for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

He then says amen, of course. And then here in verse 14 is now he's through teaching that but now he comes back to something. Now he takes one little nugget out of this out of the Lord's Prayer. One little thing is great and as awesome as this prayer is you could go back and illuminate on any part of it.

But there's one party. He it's like he can't let it go he's got to go back and bring it back and as if it's some major issue to Heaven as if there's some major thing that God when he watches us pray and he watches us live and he watches us walk in other areas where we can grow so much but there's almost this area that keeps dragging us down and he says I want to come Back and talk for a moment almost about that is what he's saying there any then he says in verse 14 He says for if he forgive Men their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you.

The Centrality of Forgiveness in Christian Life

And here he's telling us there that after he's talked about prayer and the pattern for prayer now He comes back and he wants to talk to us about the tremendous importance of forgiveness the tremendous centrality of a Developing within our life an ability a capacity a desire a love to forgive and to forgive all people around us and here I believe that this is because one of the things that's so important about This is forgiveness is one of the Lord's deepest attributes.

It's one of the his greatest and most wonderful of qualities. It's one of the things that he also I believe looks in us. Therefore that this capacity that he has with you and I day after day after day all day His love is forgiveness is so powerful.

That we can find herself living and walking before him and coming into his presence. And though meantime we how many times do we blow it all day? How many failures do we have constantly sins of commission where we just committed something omitted.

Do you know what we should have said and should have done and the constant failures and yet? We still come easily before God not there to where God just simply when we would come in there. He's sitting there Tapping away as if we're trying to talk and he wait a minute.

Hold it. Don't don't don't don't talk to me. Well, you know and what's wrong? Well, you guess just what do you think's wrong? You know and and yet he is so forgiving. He doesn't play games with us. He we just have this concept in this reality of God that he is so loving he is so forgiving.

It's just so deeply ingrained into his nature and his character and his being. That he's so approachable even after we have failed and failed and failed and failed we can still turn right around and say Lord I need your help and Instead of say I don't think so, you know or to try again.

How stupid do you think I am, you know or something like that never does it he helps us. He leads us he works within us constantly without saying wait a minute. Do you realize how you failed me? You didn't you do you see what you just did?

Did you see that you see this and you blew it and blew it and now you just want me to forgive you? Well, he is forgiveness is so great that sometimes we take it for granted. But here in a sense what Jesus is saying I wish you had that quality and you ought to wish you had it too.

That within your heart in your life that people would almost just know your love your forgiveness is so profound is so intense. It's so great that they would take it for granted. That you are just so quick to forgive and you love forgiving.

It's ingrained within your nature in your character. And of course, that's one of the great battles that many have. Matthew 18 in verse. Well, you know the story but in Matthew 18 and there of where Jesus Peter comes to Jesus.

He said Lord, how many times should we forgive and then he throws out the number seven, you know. As if that would really be wonderful, you know, and then Jesus says no Peter 70 times 7 innumerable times.

Just you forgive and you forgive and you forgive you just just don't keep counting others. It's not a suggestion there 70 times some 490 times and I mean we just sit there with somebody say well. That's that's 104, you know or something or you know.

And as if we're just waiting to hit see when we get to 490 it there's no way you can keep track. So forget it he say. And here is he is trying to bring this concept into our life he gives the the little parable in the story there of the you know, the Master there that had the servants this King and When he goes and he takes an account of them and he does some reckoning on it.

He realized here's one that owes him. Maybe equivalent like ten million dollars depending on who you whose figures you use. But this vast amount of money and when the fella can't pay him and he throws himself on his mercy to his king.

He's I'm sorry, please forgive me. I don't have to do give me a chance and I'll do everything I can and and the king just forgave him. And then the fella goes on and then there's a fella that owns him some money.

You know just a few bucks and then he says, where is it? Give me the money and the guy he said I he couldn't pay and he's fault. He's I'm sorry, please. You know and he said I don't care throw him in prison.

And here is Jesus gives this illustration this fella that was just forgiven, you know more than he could earn in a hundred lifetimes and all of a sudden now. Somebody comes along and in in some little thing happens and he can't forgive him.

And and here I believe one of the important parts about this illustration to me that many times we overlook. Is I don't believe we will ever in this lifetime be ever asked to forgive any human being. Anywhere near the amount that God has already forgiven every one of us.

There isn't a sin that we haven't failed against God there is all the commandments we've broken them. We've loved other gods. We've worshipped other gods. We're come guilty of spiritual adultery. We've murdered in our heart.

We have done virtue every iniquitous thing and God looks at us and he forgives and forgives all the sins that are humanly. Capacity capable we've done it through our lifetime to God and in the process of living.

Somebody here hurts us and somebody does this but nobody will ever I don't care. How terrible what it is that human beings have done to human beings and they have done some terrible things but in the sense though of As wicked as they are compared to the wickedness of my iniquitous of my corrupt of my sinful heart.

And on how God looks and he says I forgive you. I don't hang him out before you. Oh if anybody could make somebody feel guilty, let's think of what God could do to you and me and he doesn't. He doesn't he makes us feel loved and then he didn't people offend us and hurt us and do things and he says now forgive you know this is Mount over here and then we can't and we won't do it and then here the interesting thing is Jesus of course closes off that.

When now this man there that is in the in the Illustration in the parable now when he now doesn't forgive this other guy. He drags him in and the king then turns and his Lord was wroth. He delivered him unto his tormentors until he should pay all that was due unto him.

He says alright here. He looks at him and he said now you. Because you will not forgive as you have been forgiven. Now I'm gonna let your tormentors deal with you and you know I think that one of the greatest things that happens to a person that doesn't forgive is.

We end up getting delivered ourself into our own torment. You know our own torture chamber somebody there that will not cannot refuses to forgive for whatever reason we walk away and in the very process of Doing that we have delivered ourselves under our own torture chamber.

There to where would you that person did you do. I can't believe what they? Man, I don't even don't mention their name and how we go on and we can go on for weeks and months sometimes years. There with people that we refuse to forgive and There we still hold on to it.

In how easily people can let us down. I have a dear friend that is did his dad. He's so mad at his dad and his dad was raising him. He is daddy grew up. You know went through the Depression went through wars and there's somebody there really feel he felt like my god.

Get my kids an education. That's what I got to do. I got to get him an education and I got to teach him and he's got a. I've got to get him a job. I've got to help him make it in this life and he was hard on him to the kids.

Accounting and there he made him study and he made him go through school and he made him get an education. And he was so mad at his dad. You couldn't believe it furious at his father. And all the time because his dad didn't play ball with him and he wasn't here.

He wasn't there and we didn't go fishing together. And we didn't ride bikes together and the things that a fatherless son ought to do. According to him and he decided you know when I that's not how I'm gonna be when I got my kids my kids.

There we're gonna ride bikes together and we're gonna mow the lawn together and we're gonna do stuff together and we're gonna have vacations together. And we're gonna fish together and we're and you know interestingly enough.

He did all of that. He really did and he was he. I was quite astounding a lot of people say they're what they're gonna do. But the interesting thing about it is I watched this go on over many years several decades.

Is that here this guy by the way, he did succeed. He's a multimillionaire and. And is and but the interesting thing is is with his kid as he raises his son. They're buddies and they're close. The only thing that makes mad though is this kid can't do anything without him.

He's a full-on adult got children of his own. I'm always drumstick in this kid. He can't do a thing without me, you know, and I don't know what's going on with it. He's complaining about his kid and he's mad at his kid.

He's mad at his father and he's mad at his kid in one time. He's telling me this. I'm just laughing. He says what is so funny? I said you you're hilarious. You're angry at everybody both sides. And he's what do you mean?

And I said you're mad at your dad because he made you study made you get an education made you do all this. I'll bet every time you go to the bank. You just take that check and you just put in there and put it in there.

I just hate this money. My dad made me earn it. I'm so mad at him all these millions of dollars. I'm furious. You know over at him. You're upset with him. Over what he did the best he could and now you your poor kid who you you boy you bait his hooks and you bait his business you bait everything with him and you ride bikes with him and you're constantly putting air in his life and keeping it going and You're mad at him because he can't do anything without you.

So who's right? And he looked at me and he said not you and that was the end of that conversation. So he's mad at me too but the. But I know so many people I mean life is life and life happens and when I look at people constantly holding Children or holding parents hostage to their anger to their failures.

You did this to me. You know get over it people are people and people fail and all no matter what you do how you think you know. You ought to do it and you maybe go out and try or somebody let you down or whatever else.

But when you watch people sometimes their entire lifetime sometimes mad at people Who loved him who cared who tried and failed? According to somebody's Opinion anyway, and here is Jesus ain't I'll tell you something.

The one that's really gonna get hurt is the one that can't forgive not the one who might have failed or maybe not. But the one that goes on whose life is gonna be paralyzed whose life is gonna be tormented whose life is never gonna get anywhere is the one there that constantly has the excuse of the person that failed them and That they're angry at and they can't it won't forgive.

They're gonna have the most crippled and most pathetic and most tormented of lives. And here Jesus He's simply saying here to us. He says oh that there could be this capacity to forgive this desire to forgive this love of Forgiving there and when we do so often we pray and we on one hand part of our lips.

We come out and we say thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Here in heaven this love this forgiveness this fullness of it. That is there for every single one of us. And then when out of one side of my mouth I said God I want right here on earth just like things are in heaven and then right here on earth is somebody right next to Me.

I'm having a difficult time with her a bad opinion about and I won't forgive him. And then the life with father is going to get restricted right there. Life going on with communion with God in a wonderful abiding fellowship and relationship with him.

It's it's gonna be crippled. And here is one of the great tests of what do I really truly want in life? Do I want no human being to ever failed me or anybody that ever did to go any up? Pay it all up you get the books right and of course, I never want to get right what I've done.

But everybody what they owe me I want that and Jesus have to say that's what you want. You don't really want life with your father. You don't want a great relationship with God. God doesn't try to sit there and work out the books.

God has a heart and he is somebody that looks at people. He says I love you. And do you want that's heaven? That's what heaven's all about. I forgive you. I want you home more than I want any opinion about you.

That's negative. I want to be close to you. I want to have fellowship and communion with you. I want to be a part of you and forget the past forget it is. I'll find a way to get it all done and blot It all out if you want it and if you desire it and how it is that sometimes you know.

We this is a great problem. Here Jesus after he says he reprays this prayer and then he comes back and he grabs on to a piece of it in a Concept of it and he says forgiveness. Zip to look there and put this great emphasis on and he says don't you get it?

Because how easily in this life we can be angry. Or we can be judgmental and we can walk almost in a judgmental spirit or an attitude in our relationships or in our homes or the people we work around and.

The next thing you know, it not only separates us from them. Separates us from fellowship with God walks the whole thing that we've been trying to build and wanting to have a stronger relationship with him than as soon as I walk right Out of that and there's so-and-so.

There's my father at one end or my kid at the other end or there's somebody to work with or you know somewhere else out there. And the next thing, you know, there's you know, he we didn't we know he prayers are hindered our walk is hindered our Fellowship with God and next thing, you know, I'm not I've got no I don't want to love my wife.

I don't want to forgive my children. No, I don't want to do the people at work. And we're angry and we're judgmental or and some people they're just angry at people in general. They don't even know who they're angry at yet.

I just started but give me time. You know almost as the way some people are they just get up and they can almost go, you know. They just they're just they're just anger waiting for an object, you know to focus on they're just judgmental you know just looking, you know for that and and.

And they'll find an excuse. But forgiveness is just the opposite it looks there for an excuse to be forgiving and an opportunity to be forgiving and then. And the reason I want to carry this on and put these two together here tonight is that I believe that here the issue of forgiveness in Fasting though, you know, it's not it's not another thought like oh, I'm going off into another thing here.

Fasting as a Spiritual Discipline

But moreover he says when you fast be not as the hypocrites because you see the reason I think this is so tightly united. Is that sometimes forgiving? People is still not sufficient. In a sense there it doesn't solve everything sometimes after we have forgiven people.

There's still more work spiritually to do that God allows. And so here right after he teaches us to pray right after he says do you want a deep relationship? Here's how you can have it with God and if you want to keep it you've got to be forgiving of people around you and then he goes right from there into the concept of fasting and.

It's something that's quite just it's in the Bible very very extensively sometimes we don't see it. And we just go past it quickly. But I just want to give you some of the occasions here and then we're going to go back and look at it.

One of the more famous ones I suppose, you know when Jonah net went to Nineveh and he came to Nineveh there. And he told them there he says you got 40 days and you're gonna be destroyed. And no sooner did that happen?

And then the people there the the people of Nineveh, they believe God. They thought you know, we are guilty we're going to be destroyed and they proclaim a fast and they put on sackcloth off all the way from the greatest under the least of All the people word gets all the way to the king, you know there and and he finds himself there.

He's in sackcloth. He's in ashes all of the whole town of men of the whole city in sackcloth and ashes and fasting crying out to God. Saying who could tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce angry that we pierce that we perish not.

And then it says after they did this great work of fasting In a prayer that God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God repented of his evil. He said he would do unto them and he did it not.

Now some would look at that and say well see Prayer and fasting it changes God's mind. Now that you can figure that out on your own I'm not sure so sure as much as I don't know that it changed God's mind.

I think that they're the threat. Changed their mind and put it in a moment when they now could Get to the same mind that had always been of God's and desire to bless them. But if you don't want to bless, yeah, you'll you'll you're gonna be in trouble.

But if you want to seek blessing you can have it isn't so much he changed his mind. Just what side of me do you want to meet? And the next thing, you know, though they found through fair through prayer and fasting that it brought them into a dimension in a concept in a relationship with God where God could now bless them and God could now preserve them in prayer and fasting is a very very powerful thing.

It changes at least our mind. It changes our heart in such a way as God can do some great things and wonderful things a number of times the children of Israel when they were in battle and judges 20 in verse 26 It says.

And all the children of Israel and all the people where they went up and they came to the house of God and they Wept and they sat before the Lord and they fasted That day until evening and offered a burnt offering and peace offerings for the Lord and the children of Israel inquired of the Lord.

For the Ark of the Covenant of God was there those days and Phineas the son of Eliezer the son of Aaron stood before it these days saying shall I yet go into battle and then it goes on and says and the Lord said go up for tomorrow.

I will deliver them unto thine hand. But here they're in the they're in a time of battle themselves. And as they're in a battle and they're looking there at this the struggle of the battle and that's great sense of potential for defeat they found themselves coming in fasting and praying and then as they did that they were moved to offer burnt offerings and Sacrifices to God and then they asked God how is it gonna go?

What is gonna happen? Shall we head into this battle and the Lord tells him? Yes I'll give you a victory. And so often when there's battles with the children of Israel one time in the Moabites the Ammonites they combined together against Jehoshaphat.

He proclaimed a fast. There's the people came and they fasted and they prayed and they sought the Lord throughout all of Judah. Then there God worked and did wonderful things. Joel called for a fast at a time of national calamity.

I haven't got time to read all these tonight but here when God is just honestly sought after and. And there's a particular blessing or a supply or a need that is needing. Joel 1 14 says sanctify ye a fast call a solemn assembly gather the elders of all the inhabitants of the Land of the house of the Lord your God and cry unto the Lord here he said you fast and then you cry out you pray and you seek God.

And on the annual atonement for sin when their Forgiveness was sought after in Leviticus 23 29. It says for whatsoever soul shall It be that shall not be afflicted in that same day. He should be cut off from among the people here.

Did God look there at this day? He said I want you to take this day and he says and if you don't in a sense and he uses the word afflict. They're used to deny yourself. He says you turn off all of this other stuff.

You think you need and come and seek me. I'll work. In trials sometimes in our life and David when his son was sick and dying we're told there that The David there when his child by it with Bathsheba was died that David fasted all night.

Says he laid upon the earth the child died. And God didn't change his mind on that particular situation there, but David accepted and he understood. Sometime in fasting you may not always get what it is that you want.

But I believe that what you will yet is something there when you're out there open and before God and seeking him. You may not always get what you want. But but you'll perceive God's wisdom in God's hand in what it is It is doing and you'll find yourself brought to a place where you can accept some things that otherwise would be horrendous perhaps.

On another occasion when David was under attack in Psalm 30 35 13 It says for as for me when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I humbled my soul and fasted in my prayer returned and my own bosom I have behaved myself as though I had been.

As though he had been my friend or brother. I browed down heavily as one that mourneth for his mother here David God I came and I sought you and I fasted and I prayed There and I found myself being brought in to where I was like a dear friend with you is brought so close and You know through this experience when Nehemiah was just told about the children of Israel and the terrible circumstances that they were experiencing back in the land when they were sent out from the captivity to go back in the affliction and the reproach that the Situation was in back in Jerusalem Nehemiah fasted, but then during this time of fasting God began to move his heart.

Touch his heart about rebuilding the wall and through fasting. He actually discovered his ministry. What it was that God had for him there when God took him there set him aside and then commissioned him Essentially to be the one that was going to go out and do this.

So often we need wisdom. We need guidance. God what do you want me to do with my life and we're just moaning and groaning and Wondering and looking at one ads and going here and going there and not that we don't do those as well.

But here sometimes where you just go before God and you fast and you pray. When Daniel wanted deliverance for the children of Israel that were in captivity in Babylon. He fasted in Daniel 9 3 and in the New Testament you find there a number of occasions.

And it tells us she departed not from the temple. But she served God with fasting and prayers day and night and yet then out of that God revealed to her the Messiah and Luke part me Acts chapter 10 when Cornelius was looking for more insight into God and the Messiah he was fasting and.

And not even so much. There is a saved man, but a man hungry for God. He already sensed I just want to see God with my whole heart and he did and God honored it and When the church wanted greater blessing in Acts 13.

Upon their their servants they fasted and prayed in Acts 14 when Paul and Silas Were both about that when they're about to establish local churches. They fasted and they prayed asking God's power in his presence.

And so in fasting through the Bible is virtually synonymous with prayer. You may basically always find them together and. And it's something there essentially that when somebody. When you look at all the times that moment somebody there is looking for God's help.

Looking for his wisdom looking for his power looking for victory in a battle looking for guidance on what to do in their life looking for God's blessing and. Longing deeply and wonderfully and profoundly they need to work of forgiveness or of restoration of Their lives of an enemy to be destroyed or whatever it may be.

They oftentimes there's fasting in prayer. Now what is fasting? Here's the occasion of it. What is it? Well, essentially all that fasting is is simply denying our body its basic requirements. The things that our body just I need it feed me.

I got a right to it. You got to have it, but it's a deliberate act of saying in a sense to our own body and a work of self. Denial denial. No, it's never to injure the body. You don't ever find that in the Bible.

In fact Colossians 2 23 calls it the neglecting of the body. Not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh and here in other words as Paul kind of describes it He says well, you're neglecting your body.

And in other words so that you aren't in a deliberate attempt not to honor the flesh you're saying I you know, I want to find the switch. Inside my heart inside my life or the flesh my opinion my thought my feeling this is what I think needs to happen.

Here's how this has got to be solved. That's what this person needs and I just would. I don't want to know what I think I want and I don't want to know what I feel. I don't want to know any of my own desires.

God I am so messed up inside. I want your Hand your guidance, how can I just turn off my own mechanisms and start to turn on heaven? That's what fasting Seems to do in the Bible. It is something there that is a deliberate Shutting down of the physical aspects.

You might say of life to the you to desire to open up the spiritual. I Want to know what heaven thinks about this? I want God's hand on this and so it's something there that one of the things that does I believe it just blesses God.

It blesses God in a sense when he sees somebody that comes away. They want something so much is that they move away from the comforts. They move away from the crowd. They move away from the entertainment and the activity and all the fun stuff or everything else in life and say, you know God I got a problem and I need your help and I just want to walk away from all of this other stuff.

It I don't know what it's saying to me and what it's doing and how it clouds me and and gives me opinions but how can I just step away from this and sit before you and I'm not interested in my own nourishment or my own pleasure my own entertainment or my own health, you know.

Or strength at this point you'll take care of all that, but I believe it blesses God it blesses us when we do it. It also helps us to think reestablished priorities in life so often in the Bible. You'll see somebody there that when they fast and they're seeking God.

God's every time they walk away with some area reprioritized some area spoken to some issue. Something in their life that they come away with and say yes. That's what I needed and when somebody decides that this is what they need in life.