Enemies Within The Walls - Lack Of Forgiveness (part 4)

Our Father in Heaven, Father, we come before you this morning just thankful for all that is ours in Christ and most especially for the gift of eternal life that He has provided for us by dying for our sin, by living the life that we could never live.

And Father, we thank you that you raised him from the dead, that we might know that he is the Christ and Lord, as we look to your word this morning and what it says about forgiveness, how we ought to think about it, how we ought to walk through that process.

Lord, I pray that you'd be with us, that this would be a time of reflecting on your goodness to us and reflecting on how we ought to treat one another within the body of Christ. Father, bless each one here in Jesus name.

We pray. Amen. Well, you know, I I hope as we deal with this this morning, in fact, I'm going to encourage you to even send me some examples. We'll talk about what I'm talking about this week, maybe some issues that we work through.

But I hope that as we do this this morning and maybe we'll get to it this morning, that this will be unique in the history of Bethlehem Bible Church. You know, some time ago I said I was going to do the most controversial Sunday school in the history of Bethlehem Bible Church.

And I think I did that in my own estimation. Thank you very much. And by the way, one of the things I learned in California, in case you were wondering, was that it is possible. Well, I shouldn't even say that.

Yeah, well, yeah, sure I will. Why not? This is Sunday school. You are the elect of the elect, the elite, as it were. One of the things I learned, and how many of you watch the conference online? Did anybody watch it?

OK, anybody see the segments with Todd Freel, where they did the panels? And, you know, I was just I was watching him and going, who knew that being a Christian smart aleck was a profession? I didn't know that, you know, and watching him, I just thought I never would have guessed.

Anyway, doing this series on enemies within the walls and lack of forgiveness. And I think forgiveness is so key because, you know, even in the sermon, I said, if if we understand the Bible as an as a single story, as an arc, as it were, it really is.

How can God be reconciled to man or how can a holy and just God forgive man of our sins, mankind of our sins? And he does that through the personal work of Jesus Christ. But even as we are forgiven, how should we forgive?

And this is I think it's just so key. If you want to have division in a church, if you want to have division in your home, you want to have division in your marriage. How many of you would like to have division in your marriage?

Don't don't raise your hands. If you want to have issues at home, just practice failing to forgive. Just stay mad at your spouse. Can you imagine that? You know, now, this didn't actually happen, but you know what I've noticed around the house that it's gotten very quiet.

My wife hasn't spoken to me for 30 days. Might be time to do something about that. I mean, if the Bible says to keep short accounts, the Bible says, don't let the sun go down in your anger. The Bible says forgive as you've been forgiven.

But you know what? I think it is just the one thing that is ingrained in us that maybe is the hardest thing for us to do. And we've discussed a variety of reasons for that. I think the number one reason is what?

What do you think the number one reason that forgiveness is hard? What's that? I think it's pride. I think that's an excellent reason. Because what? Because we think we deserve better than what we're getting.

And therefore, we're not going to forgive. And again, as I've said many times, if we just viewed all of life, if we could just do this constantly, if we could just view it through the prism of our sin.

And how the Lord Jesus Christ has covered that sin and how we've been forgiven for that and how we're not going to stand guilty on the day of judgment for that, if we just viewed all of life through that, then everything that was done against us would seem huge.

No, it would seem relatively minor. We understand how great our sin is against the Holy God, then we're less likely to be unforgiving. Last time we talked about David, his adultery and subsequent murder, really of Uriah the Hittite, arranging for Uriah to be up on the front lines.

And how he did this all and how Nathan eventually comes to him and says, what, you are the man. And I know for me, and I'm sure for many of you, when you have those kind of you are the man moments, when you realize that you stand guilty of whatever it is, there's some brokenness that ought to attend that.

And I think we ought to think about that. And we talked last time about how there can be temporal consequences, even with forgiveness, how there can be. I mean, there are many sins that we could name where there are consequences, even though you've been forgiven for them.

We will talk about some of those even as we work through some of these examples. But as an example, you know, can if somebody steals from you, can you forgive them? Yes. Can they still go to prison? Yes.

Is that a temporal consequence of their sin? Yes. Now, I want to talk this morning about the process of forgiveness, the process of forgiveness. And I don't mean, by the way, you know, step one for me forgiving you, step two for me forgiving you.

That's not what I mean. I mean, there is some sometimes some analysis of of of this idea of forgiveness. And let me just start with a question. When should you seek forgiveness from someone else? When should you seek forgiveness from someone else?

I think there's an obvious answer as soon as you know that there's a problem, which is kind of my second answer. But what do you mean by that, Tom? OK, once. So this was my first answer. And so you didn't answer my second one.

But anyway, when you recognize that you sinned against someone else, then you should go and seek their forgiveness. And again, I think this is bears repeating because it's something that people often mangle.

Asking for forgiveness is not the same as saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I bumped into this music stand. Why are they not the same thing? I'm sorry, requires no response. It absolutely requires no response.

Whereas, will you please forgive me? Requires that person to process it. Think about it, consider it, and they actually have to say yes or no. Of course, if they say no, there is another issue. Now, when else should you seek forgiveness?

This is a little trickier, and Tom was almost there. When else should you seek the forgiveness of someone else? Or should you at least consider the possibility that you might need the forgiveness of someone else?

Russ, OK, when you don't know that you've sinned against someone else, but they perceive that you have. And how would you know that there's there's a change in your relationship? You know, you haven't had the DTR yet that define the relationship.

You know what's wrong with our relationship discussion? But there's a definite difference. You know, you walk this way and they see you and they turn around and go the other way, you know, put their head down.

That's a clue. You know, some of these clues are very subtle like that. You know, and like I said, if you're married and your spouse doesn't talk to you for several days, for some of you, that may be normal.

I hope not. But, you know, if something like that happens, then you need to recognize that there may be something and, you know, sometimes what happens, you have to say, OK, did I do something to offend this person?

What do you do if you don't really know? I can't think of anything I've searched over the last, you know, month or so of my interaction with this person, and I can't think of a single thing that I've done that could have possibly offended them.

Well, OK. Now, I don't want to step on too many toes. Yes, I do. There are probably some here this morning who think, OK, if somebody ducks and turns and goes the other way, hey, that's their problem.

If they don't want to talk to me, well, I don't know what their issue is, but they need to get over it or, you know, whatever. You know, we don't we don't really even take that first step. But, yeah, we need to we need to go to them and find out, you know, have I done something to offend you?

Do I need to ask you? I may not know, and it's entirely possible that I've done something and I don't know about it, but I had to check that out. I had to follow up on it, and I'm going to get to some specific situations here, but let me ask a few more questions.

When should you let's flip it around here a little bit. When should you confront someone else about their need to seek forgiveness from you? Let's open our Bibles to Matthew chapter 18. Matthew 18. I'd like somebody to read just verse 15, please.

Go ahead. Well, now that only applies to siblings and not to spouses. No, wait. If your brother this this just applies to any believer sins against you, then what are we what are we supposed to do? We go to them again.

Let's just make this real practical. In the home between you and your spouse, if you're married, your spouse does something, sins against you, you know, it could be some small thing. What is our response to be?

Well, if we're if we're listening to the Lord, we would go and tell them what they've done wrong in private. That's the right thing to do. Is that how we deal with things? Yeah, Peggy. OK, and we'll I think we'll get there, but we can get there now.

What about love covers a multitude of sins? I mean, you know what? Here's the thing. You know, my wife. Is constantly I mean, she she covers up more more things than the, you know, I don't know, than the CIA.

She covers up a lot. What does it mean to cover up a multitude of sins not to be easily offended? OK, I mean, if you think about it, if everything that bothered you, you know, your husband fails to pick up his socks, your wife, even though you've asked her a thousand times, doesn't get the mail during the day and then you have to go all the way down to the mailbox.

You know, when is it that you can't cover it up and you have to do what Matthew 18 says? OK, when it's willful and deliberate, when it's meant to get under the person's skin. OK. I agree. Is there any other situation, Russ?

Maybe they were kidding or maybe they didn't mean to. OK, so maybe you have to have to look at it that way. I think there's a there is a problem with that. I'll just say it that way. There's a problem with that.

And what some things are said in jest, they're said kiddingly, but they're not received that way. So then what? You know, then we're back to Matthew 18. And here's the point on covering a multitude of sins.

There are some things that we can just go, you know what, I can get over that. But what you know, if you can't get over something, then you can't get over it. You tell yourself, you know what, love covers a multitude of sins and I'm just going to cover that up.

You go to bed that night, you're like, you know what I mean, this is just running through my head, I can't go to sleep. You wake up the next day, it's still there. At some point, you have to think to yourself, this is something I can't cover up.

Maybe it's my weakness or whatever. Maybe it's something I should be able to get over. And maybe you even approach it that way. Maybe you go to your spouse, your friend, your brother in Christ, and you just say, you know what, I've tried.

I've really tried to cover this up. I tried to get over it. Maybe this is a failure on my part, but I can't. And so for the sake of our relationship, I'm asking you to ask me for forgiveness because I don't want this strain to continue.

So I think that's right. Love covers a multitude of sins, but sometimes we can't. Maybe we don't love enough. Maybe we're not big enough. But here's something I would like us to consider. Just back up a little bit in Matthew to Matthew chapter 7.

This is right after the unbeliever's favorite verse. Judge not. Matthew 7, verses 2 to 5. And if somebody would read those, please. Matthew 7, verses 2 to 5. Carmen. Yeah, to verse 5. I think if we do this, what do you think going through this process, considering our own logs, as it were, before we worry about the specs in other people, what do you think that does to us?

It should make us a lot more humble, right? And so when we... Go ahead. I think that's exactly right. It's going to make us more able, I think, to consider, you know what, in light of my sinfulness, in light of everything that I do, maybe this is one that I can really cover up.

Initially, maybe I thought I couldn't. But when I start doing the log spec thing, it kind of, their sin seems like more like a spec and I've got plenty of logs. Matter of fact, I'm thinking about starting a lumber company.

But humility. And how does that help, by the way? How does that help if we're going to go and basically confront somebody about their sin? How does that help us, Pastor Dave? I really think because it does, you know, get us off our high horse.

It does give us a sense of ourselves and our own sinfulness. And it makes it kind of a little bit easier to approach them, not in anger. Because a lot of times when we get offended, what do I mean? Look, we live in an age where we can turn on TV anytime, night or day, seeing one of these reality shows.

And what do we see? We see anger unleashed, you know, emotions unchecked. And this really is a check of our emotions. It really causes us not to be so focused on ourselves in a sinful way. But it really shows us our own weaknesses.

We're doing a self-examination before we go to them. And the benefit of it is we think, in light of all my problems, my sin, how should I be looking at my brother or sister in Christ? And when we see words like in verse five, you hypocrites first take the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

We are going to be helping them. But did you ever think about that? I mean, we could go through all of Matthew 18 and we could see that the goal is to what? Win our brother, right? We really are helping them, but we can only help them if we've got the right attitude about it.

We come in the wrong attitude. What we're going to ultimately experience is a fight. And that's not what we want. Other thoughts or questions about that, about checking out your own lumber company before you go to the speck in your brother's eye?

Yeah, big. Yeah, a lot of things. That's an excellent point. I mean, a lot of the things that we experience, a lot of things that we go through are maybe for the benefit of others. So even in this process of self-examination, of checking our own eyes, as it were, we might be able to help others down the road and maybe even our brother or sister in Christ that we're going to go confront.

But yeah, certainly a lot of the things that happen like that are for our own good and for the good of others. Now, how should you seek forgiveness? In other words, if you need to go to somebody and ask for forgiveness, how should you seek it?

How should you approach the person that you've sinned against? I'd like us to go to Psalm 51. You know, I think one of the words that Pastor Mike absolutely, I think he just detests, is broken. You know, another one is wounded.

Why? Because people say, we're broken, we're wounded. You know, because it's just all it turns into, you know, the Church of Oprah if we use it in that sense. But I'm about to break Pastor Mike's rules because he's not here and I can get away with it.

How should we seek forgiveness? Well, I'm going to suggest that one of the ways is really a brokenness. And I don't mean that, you know, in kind of a pansy sense. I mean, in a godly sense, being broken over our sin.

Let me just read Psalm 51, the first 17 verses. And because it's so long, I'm going to go ahead and read it. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your way and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation. And my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.

For you will not delight in sacrifice where I would give it. You will not be pleased with the burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. O God, you will not despise.

Now, the psalmist writes this in response to what's that? His sin against Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite. But it's interesting, he doesn't mention them. It's God and God only. And notice what he's looking for.

In verse 12, he says, restore to me the joy of your salvation. Why? Why does he plead for that? John? That's a great phrase. I mean, the crushing guilt. There's just a weight. You know, it's like when you first get saved, you know, when you recognize that Jesus has paid for your sins and you don't bear them anymore, like the song says, you know, they're nailed to the cross and I bear them no more.

What do you have? You know, a joy and almost like a what? A weightlessness. It's almost like, you know, you have to attach your feet to the ground because you're going to float away. And when we sin, when we recognize the guilt of our sin, even after salvation, then there's a weight that comes with it.

And the deeper the sin, the weightier the guilt. And what had he done? Murder, adultery. I mean, he was just going through the Ten Commandments and just knocking off the blocks. He was just going at it.

And when he finally is called by Nathan on the carpet, then what? The guilt. The sense of separation from God. All that joy, all that kind of weightlessness is gone and replaced with the oppression of sin.

Now, was he any less saved than he was before his sin? No, but you lose that sense of it. You lose the joy and he just wants that restored. Notice again what he says in verse 14 at the end of it. My tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

He just wants, you know, in verse 15, open my lips, my mouth will declare your praise. There's just a sense in which you're beaten down by your sin, your own guiltiness, your own depravity. And you just want that removed.

Why? So that you can sing again, so you can feel that joy again. But there's a brokenness that should attend, you know, when you need to seek forgiveness. When you go to someone and you just say, you know what, I recognize that I've sinned against you.

You shouldn't just go, hey, dude, will you forgive me? Especially if it's your wife, that'd be a bad move. Hey, dude, I try not to call her dude. It's bad for him. But there should be, you know, not sackcloth and ashes and fakeness, but a genuine understanding of what you've done and how you've offended them.

And if you approach it that way, then you're doing it the right way. And I think so much of this, you know, in both ways. You know, before you go to confront someone and say, you know what, you need to ask me for forgiveness.

Or before going to ask someone for their forgiveness, there needs to be this introspection, this self-examination. We need to think through the process and think, you know, my sinfulness before God and then approach the other person.

Again, because the humility, the brokenness with which we approach the other person will help immensely. Now, how should we forgive? Well, we should forgive as God forgave. I'm going to ask, this is going to seem kind of a random question, but bear with me for a minute.

Anybody know what started World War II? Somebody will say, you know, maybe Pearl Harbor. Well, not really. What started, let me be more specific. What started World War II in Europe? What was the cause of World War II in Europe?

September 1st, 1939. Thank you very much. There's your little bit of trivia for the day. The invasion of Poland, but that's not what started it. Russ, World War I started World War II. You say, how's that?

Because the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty that ended that war, was so punitive. I mean, the Germans had to pay reparations. They were restricted. I mean, most of us have probably studied this at some point.

Maybe we've forgotten it. But the punishment that was placed on the German people were, they were enormous. They could only have, you know, a certain amount of an army and they had to pay money and they had to do all these things to kind of make up for being the aggressors in World War I.

And Hitler comes along and plays on the anger of the German people for being punished, for being not forgiven. They were not forgiven at all. I mean, when we look at the difference between how World War I ended and how World War II ended, you know, our best, you know, some of our best friends in the world are what?

The Germans and the Japanese. And we just go, how's that? You know, how's that possible? Completely different approach. We weren't out to punish those nations. We were out to rebuild them after the war.

So again, if we look at Ephesians 4, how should we forgive? We should forgive as God has forgiven us. Now, what does forgiveness look like? I'm going to suggest that one of the things that we should look for in forgiveness is a restoration of the relationship.

I think in all but the most grievous situations. I mean, let's put it this way. When David, Psalm 51, is broken over his sin, who's the one person he can't go and seek forgiveness from? Uriah the Hittite.

I mean, that's just history, right? You can't do anything about that. If he could, you know, then there should be a restoration. But especially within our homes and within the body of Christ, within our families, we should be looking for a restoration of the relationship.

And anybody who says that forgiveness doesn't necessarily include that, well, I would say in all but the most extreme situations, it probably should. I mean, if there are legal consequences or something else, that's entirely different.

But I'm talking about generally somebody hurts your feelings and then they ask for forgiveness. What do you do? Oh, I forgive you. I just don't ever want to talk to you again. Oh, I forgive you. But is that forgiveness?

Some people might think yes. And I want to go back to Ephesians chapter 4. Forgive as God has forgiven you. When you sin against God, does God say, well, you know what? I forgive you, but you're still going to have to do time in purgatory.

I'm not going to have any kind of relationship with you. I forgive you. Just don't come to me in prayer. Just don't expect anything out of me. That's not how we should be forgiving. You know, it's kind of like those car commercials, you know, where they show the car, you know, being smashed and then perfectly restored.

Ideally, our relationship should be the same. They should be perfectly restored. Now, that may or may not always happen, but that should be the objective. We should be trying to restore relationships.

There should also be, when we think about forgiveness, there should be a sense of joy. I mean, really, if you forgive somebody and they know they're forgiven, then there ought to be happiness on both sides.

Why? Because you love that person because they're your brother or sister in Christ. And you want there to be that restoration. And so you ought to be happy that whatever it was that was separating you has been resolved.

And again, as we mentioned a few weeks ago, there needs to be a letting go of the issue, not saving it for later. You know, if love doesn't keep account of sins, if love is not an accountant, as it were, then love ought not to be a historian either.

Don't you remember when you did X, Y, or Z? We just shouldn't do that. Now, let's talk about some examples, maybe, of forgiveness. Maybe we can go through one or two and kind of get a little interaction here.

Real life situations. I think these things happen from time to time. Here's my first one. A wife gives the child in their home instructions and then is countermanded by the husband. She tells him to go clean his room, do his homework, whatever the deal is.

And the husband says, nah, don't worry about it. Does anybody need forgiveness in that situation? What do you think? Who needs forgiveness? Maybe the child for failing to obey directions in the first place.

But don't you think maybe the husband might need some forgiveness? I mean, this really gets into the heart of marital issues that we see from time to time. When I've seen this on many occasions, a husband and wife kind of dispute or take different sides of an issue in front of the kids.

How does that work? How is the wife going to, what's her perspective on this exchange going to be? Well, and I agree, Marie, and I thank you for that, because I think that's right that the wife, and I mean, that was very godly thinking on your part.

The wife, if she responds to her husband and says right there, you know, what are you talking about? You can't do that in front of him. Well, now we've just got an escalation of the whole situation. And I think it would be right for her to go to her husband later.

Now, I don't know, I'm just kind of, I hadn't really thought about going to the child. I don't really know, I don't really know if they need the child's forgiveness, but I agree that there needs to be some kind of, that that situation needs to be addressed with the child so that they understand, depending on the age, that that's not going to happen again, John.

That's exactly right. I mean, he just taught, I mean, isn't it amazing that you can teach something without even saying it? You know, he just taught the child, the mom doesn't count. Forget about her.

I'm the boss. Just listen to me, which is what, you know, I always did. Oh, sorry. No, that's just, the last thing you want to do is undermine your wife and husband and wife, mother and father in front of the kids have to be on the same page.

Before I get to Pastor Harry, I would just say that almost any time where I disagree with my wife, I hope this is true, or she disagreed with me, which was on many occasions, you just can't air that out in front of the kids.

It just can't be done. There needs to be a united front. Now, if I'm wrong in what I say, or she's wrong in what she says, well, then we need to go off together, consult, get on the same page, and then go back and talk to the kid.

Harry. Theory. Sure, sure. These are all hypothetical situations. And you know what? For any parent here that hasn't already figured this one out, the one thing you need to do when a child comes to you and says, you know, can I do da, da, da.

Well, if you ask your mother, kids are crafty. Like, you know, they're like the, I, you know, now I would not personally know from any personal experience. I never did anything like that as a kid. And you know what?

Even, well, I mean, just think about this in the workplace. I mean, what, if you're, if you're at work and your boss comes along, you've made a decision, your boss comes along and countermands that in front of everybody.

How does that look? Not good at all. And so, you know, if you've had a supervisor like that, then you should understand that to do that in the home, how much worse is that? You should never want to do that.

Ever. Other thoughts on this, Russ? Don't make me tell grandma. There you go. Okay. Now, one of the things I want to do, and we'll do this for the next week or so, maybe, maybe just next week, but we'll talk about, I have some more examples.

And if you have some situations that you'd like to anonymously discuss, then you can send me an email and we'll just remove all the names, all the dates, times, places, everything, all the details that you want to give me and we'll just make it as generic as possible.

But I think this is helpful for us to just think through because, and we're going to get to some of the issues within the body of Christ too, but I just think it's helpful for us to think about how do we handle these kinds of situations.

Now, in this case, where this actually happened, the husband, you know, countermands the wife's instruction. The wife should go to her husband, I would say, because she's, unless she can just cover it.

But even then, if she covers that, what's the end result, John? Yeah, it's going to happen again and again and again and again. And pretty soon, you know, well, let's look at it this way. What does the Bible say to keep short accounts?

What does the Bible say? Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Why? So you don't keep a grudge. But, you know, like as it pertains to this situation, just think about this. If the wife just says, you know what, I'm just going to cover that.

And then it happens again and again and again and again. Well, what's happening? She's probably getting madder and madder and madder and madder. And the end result is, instead of dealing with it when it was at a relatively small level, you know, the damage is being done.

She's being consistently undermined. And she's going to get more angry and more angry and more angry. And the odds are better that she's going to respond in a way that she shouldn't. And, you know, just think of the damage that you're doing as far as her authority goes and how, you know, you're going to have to work a lot harder to get that child back to understanding that, you know, really mom does have some authority.

And by the way, there are homes where it's kind of reversed, where the husband will say something and then the wife countermands too. That can happen. And that's certainly not any better. Parents really need to be on the same page because like I said, kids are evil.

They will, sorry, they will exploit weakness. So anyway, we need to close. If you have some illustrations, some examples, please email them to me and we'll discuss those. Father, we just are overwhelmed that in spite of our sinfulness, in spite of our hatred for you, our violations of your law, our disregard of you, you loved us and sent your son to die for us so that you could forgive us, so that you could maintain your justice, so that you could look at us and see Christ's righteousness in place of our sinfulness.

Father, let us live in light of the forgiveness that you have granted us in Christ. Let us be a people that want to forgive, that are eager to forgive, that want to fully forgive and to have relationships restored, to think rightly of one another as brothers and sisters in Christ and to long for that sense of unity and love and joined purpose.

Father, we pray for these things in Jesus' name. Amen.