The Greatest Challenge Of Your Life

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Take your Bibles and open them to Ephesians chapter 4 as we go backwards from this morning, backing up an entire chapter.
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I rarely go into bookstores now, but I know what they used to do.
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They used to be packed with serious tomes. Nowadays, you find fluffy little titles.
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And what they do a lot is talk about how you can be, the books are filled with, or the
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And I found these six keys to happiness, and you don't have to write them down.
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I'll have them printed out for you, and you can have a copy later. Six keys to happiness.
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Number one, unconditional self -acceptance and self -love. They even use the word here, loving kindness towards yourself.
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And that should first be extended to oneself, and then extended to others. Number two, a self of interdependence and connectedness with others and even all life.
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I mean, it makes me think I want to start singing the Circle of Life or go through the Lion King thing.
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Number three, mindful awareness of thoughts and feelings without identifying with them. I'll let you ponder that one.
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Number four, acceptance of change. Things change. Accept it.
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Number five, acceptance that life is difficult and no one is free from adversity and pain.
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Number six, a sense of meaning or purpose in life. These are the six keys to happiness.
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And no, I did not find them on the inside of a fortune cookie. Those are actual PhD -level writings from somebody.
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But those are the keys to happiness. Now, let me change it a little bit. Instead of worrying about happiness, what is it that makes life miserable?
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What is it that makes people bitter? What is it that leaves them just kind of stewing and upset and isolated?
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Well, sometimes it's thinking about their circumstances in life. They just think life is unfair.
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What is happening to me in life is unfair. Sometimes it's the way other people treat them.
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Again, it's a sense of unfairness. The way people view me, the way people treat me is not fair.
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Sometimes people overdose on introspection. What do I mean by that? I mean they sit around in a darkened room and try to just focus on themselves.
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And if you do that long enough, unlike Philippians 2, which Jerry read tonight, you'll become miserable because all you'll be thinking about is yourself.
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But nothing makes a person more bitter, more miserable, than failing to forgive others.
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You run around with a book full of grudges, a list of wrongs and slights against you, you are going to be one miserable person.
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And somebody, quite frankly, that no one is going to like very much. But Christians should never think this way.
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They should never behave this way. They should never permit themselves to wallow in this kind of attitude. We should never have a list of,
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I'm going to get these people. We shouldn't have a book like that. Here's one way to think about it.
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If you just think about it this way, has Christ not relieved you of your greatest burden?
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That is to say, your sin. Has he not taken that away from you? So why are you so upset?
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Again, let's look at Ephesians 4, and I'm going to begin reading in verse 17.
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I know I said I'm only going to preach through verse 32, but I'm going to expand it a little bit.
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Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 17. Now this I say, and testify in the
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Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do. That is to say, you must no longer live or think like a
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Gentile. In the futility of their minds, they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of hearts.
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They have become callous, and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
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But that is not the way you learned Christ. Big change.
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Dramatic change. And this is the point. As Pastor Mike said this morning, the first three chapters of Ephesians focused on doctrine, on the truths that Paul writes to the church at Ephesus about what has become our gift, as it were, because we have been placed in Christ.
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The change in our station from darkness to light, but it's the adoption as sons and daughters of God.
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All these blessings that are ours in Christ, the first three chapters, and now he says, now that you know all those truths, how do you live it out?
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What do you do with it? And the first thing he says is, look, he says, don't be like the
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Gentiles. But look, again, starting in verse 21, or continuing in verse 21, assuming that you have heard about him, that is
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Christ, and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life, and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created, listen, after the likeness of God, in true righteousness and holiness.
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Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.
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Now he's talking about within the church, within the local body. Be angry and do not sin.
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Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
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Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
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And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. And look at verse 31.
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Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
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Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
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These three chapters, four, five, and six, are really instructions on how to live like you actually are in Christ.
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O 'Brien, commentator, said this. He said, the movement of thought is from the lofty heights of learning
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Christ and the new creation to the nitty -gritty of Christian behavior, telling the truth and controlling our anger, honesty at work, and kindness of speech, forgiveness, love, and sexual control.
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Each of the exhortations has to do with personal relationships within the body of Christ. In particular, they are intended to foster unity within the people of God, that unity of the
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Spirit, which the readers have been urged to zealously and energetically maintain, while the evils to be avoided are all destroyers of human harmony.
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Let me just break that down for you. When he's talking about the evils, he's saying, listen, these things separate you from other people.
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Specifically, they separate brothers and sisters in Christ. If you want to see a church that is dissolving, rather than coming together and being unified, if you want to see a church falling apart, have a bunch of Christians in it who will not forgive one another.
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Tonight, what I'm ultimately after is to have you view your life through this prism. I'm forgiven.
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I'm forgiven. All my sins are forgiven. So how should I view others, particularly other
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Christians? How should I treat them? How should I respond to them when they come to me and they ask me for forgiveness?
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For Christians, this is not a 12 -step program. It's a one -step program.
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One step. This is it. One -step program to fulfill living.
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If I could just take all the self -help books and throw them in the trash,
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I could replace them by this, forgive one another as God has forgiven you. Three actions tonight.
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But I have to be honest. Mike said, I think he said this this morning, I know he said it a million times in the past, that when preachers preach, their first point is always the longest.
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I'm going to break that tonight. My first two points are going to be short. And I'm warning you beforehand because I really want to camp out on number three.
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But I'm going to walk through, we're going to walk through verse 32. Three actions. Three actions that we're commanded to take.
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First of all, be kind to one another. Be kind to one another. Now, do I think that's not important?
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No, I think it is important. Henrickson said of this kindness, it is a spirit -imparted goodness of heart.
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The very opposite of the malice or badness, you don't hear that word very often, mentioned in verse 31.
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In other words, here's the point that Paul's trying to make. He wants
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Christians to think the best about other Christians. Even if the evidence does not suggest the best, impart the very best motives to Christians.
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Don't think the worst of them. Give them the benefit of the doubt. I mean, really, and I don't say this lightly, it drives me to tears to think about how often this is not done.
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Why is it that Christians will jump to the worst possible conclusion about the motives of another Christian?
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Why would they think the worst about somebody? It's as if they've forgotten the words of Jesus when
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He said in Matthew 7, 12, So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets.
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This is the summary of the Old Testament in terms of interpersonal relationships. Treat others like you want to be treated.
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This is the basis of most religions. They even teach this in public schools. It's shocking.
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You need to be nice to other people. Why? Because you want them to be nice to you. So why would we think that it would be okay to presume the worst about other people?
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We ought to think about the best of them. We ought to give them the benefit of the doubt. It's basic decency.
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But I think that there are Christians running around who either don't know the golden rule, or they apparently, if we were to import it or to apply it to them, that they would like to be treated as badly as they treat other people.
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I don't think that would be true, but sometimes it feels that way. So that's the first one.
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Be kind to one another. Think nicely of one another. Give each other the benefit of the doubt, right?
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Second, be tenderhearted to one another. It's right there in the text. Be kind to one another. Tenderhearted.
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It means to be compassionate. And sometimes I think compassion is a lost art.
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Compassion isn't I feel sorry for somebody. It's I feel badly for them, but I want to do something.
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I'm going to act on that. I mean, look, it's rough when we see lost dogs or lost children or victims of terrible tragedies like the earthquakes over there in Nepal.
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People like that, they get our compassion. We feel sorry for them. But sometimes within the body of Christ, we don't feel that way.
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Or we may feel that way, but we don't actually act on it. We are to be sympathetic to the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
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And if we can meet them, we ought to meet them. This is love in action. It's not enough to say,
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I love somebody. I emote about somebody. We need to be people that act, that step, that do for others within the body of Christ.
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And now the third action. Forgive one another. Forgive one another.
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And I really believe that this is not only the greatest challenge in life, because I think it's one that we often fail at, but I really think it's at the heart of the
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Christian life. If you are not a forgiving person, I'll probably say this four or five or six times tonight.
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If you are not a forgiving person tonight, you need to look yourself in the mirror and think about why that is.
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MacArthur said this, almost no concept is more important to the Christian faith than forgiveness.
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He goes on, the gospel itself is a message about God's forgiveness. And Christ's teaching was full of exhortations to his people to be forgiving to one another.
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He set an incredibly high standard, teaching us to forgive even the most stubborn offenders.
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And yet what do we hear so often? You don't know what that person's like. You don't know how many times
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I've had to forgive them. You don't know how many times they've done this. I would just refer you to the words of Jesus.
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But I would argue that these few words here in verse 32, really a great launching pad to the gospel.
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I mean, look at, in fact, I think you could get the whole gospel right in here in the second half of that verse. Forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.
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Look at that, forgiving one another. Well, how does that help us get to the gospel? Why would we need to, well, just take a step back.
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Why would you need to forgive somebody? Because they have sinned against you. And the truth is, we all need forgiveness from time to time.
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Why? Because we all sin. That's the first part of the gospel, right, is the bad news.
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Unless you understand the bad news, you won't get the good news. And the truth is, we all need forgiveness.
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So we need to forgive one another. It's just part of who we are.
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We are going to have to forgive one another, or we're going to be miserable. But look at the second part of that, as God in Christ forgave you.
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And this is really the heart of Christianity. The God -man, the Lord Jesus Christ, voluntarily going to the cross after living a sinless life.
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And he paid the price for our sins to propitiate the wrath of God for our sins.
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As God in Christ forgave you, it had to be in Christ. There's no other way we could be forgiven.
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It had to be the sacrifice of Christ. It had to be his death. It had to be that penalty paid for our sins.
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And it shows that God was satisfied with the penalty that Jesus paid because he raised him from the dead.
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The forgiveness of sins that we enjoy as Christians is demonstrated by the resurrection.
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The fact that Jesus is no longer in the tomb tells us that God is no longer upset with us. He's no longer mad at those who are in Christ.
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He's accepted that payment. We're going to explore that some more.
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But really, there is no aspect of human life that forgiveness is not key to.
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I think it was, you know, I think this might be the second time today. I didn't write this down, but it might be the second time today that Ruth Bell Graham was kind of quoted here at the pulpit.
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I think she said something along the lines of, you know, the key to marriage is two good forgivers, something like that.
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Can you stay married if you will not forgive your spouse? The answer is no. I'm telling you,
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I'm not going to say try it. Try, you know, just spend a week not forgiving each other.
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See how that goes. It won't go well. Can you effectively parent your children if you will not forgive them?
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You're going to have a real hard time. Can you expect to be tolerated at work if you are known as a bitter person who holds a grudge?
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I mean, imagine that in the workplace. You know, everybody knows that you're the Christian, and you're the most bitter, angry, unforgiving person there.
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How's that going to go? Not well. And it's going to make it really hard for you at work.
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How about maintaining friendships? Are you going to have many friends if you won't forgive them?
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Again, we are sinners. This is who we are as human beings. Each of us is imperfect.
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We're going to sin. We're going to fall short even of other people's expectations. And if we want to be forgiven, we have to be eager to forgive others.
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Now, let's just back up to verse 31 for a moment. Let's just contemplate forgiveness in the context of these sinful attitudes.
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Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.
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Bitterness is a sin. When I hear Christians say, I'm bitter, okay, you know, are you asking to be confronted about your bitterness?
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Is that what you want? The word means to respond in harshness with a desire to strike back at someone.
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Exact verbal revenge. I mean, before I was a Christian, we, you know, as police officers, we used to just insult each other all the time.
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This is what we did. And one of the first things before I knew much of anything other than the gospel was,
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I realized, I was at work one day, and I realized that the way I talked and communicated to my coworkers was not right.
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I needed to stop it. Even in my little infancy, I understood that this was not good.
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This is not the right way to talk to other people. Second one, wrath or fury.
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This is when you're so mad you don't even want to think. One man says you're likely to resort to name -calling or whatever comes to your mind to express your anger.
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You're just so frustrated, you just can't even process information.
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Third one, anger. And really, this word is used of the wrath of God.
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And it's the one where you could say, well, wait a minute, if it's not a sin for God to be wrathful, why is it a sin for me?
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Well, because you're not God. And when people sin against you, they're ultimately sinning against God.
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But one man said this about anger. He says, this is when your heart is like a roaring furnace, and you're just stoking that furnace and getting madder and madder and madder.
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Clamour, a picture of someone who's completely lost. And in fact, if you didn't know better, you'd think they were demon -possessed or on drugs.
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Just a complete lack of self -control. Slander, or it's also the
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Greek word for blasphemy. Speech that denigrates or defames, reviling, showing disrespect.
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Now, some people want to make slander merely saying about someone else that something that's not true, something that's false.
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Because they say, well, you know what, when you blaspheme about or against God, you're ultimately just saying something about him that's not true.
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Therefore, when we talk about other people, the only way we can slander them is if we say something that's not true.
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Well, that's not right. Because the word does mean to cause someone else to disrespect that person.
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So in other words, if I say something to someone else, and it makes someone, that person that I'm talking to, think less of you, then
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I've sinned against you. That's slander. Malice.
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It's mean -spiritedness or ill -will. It means you really want the worst for someone.
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You want them to come to damage, to a bad end. You want something horrible to happen to them.
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What a terrible thing for Christians to think like that. And he's saying, listen, all those things, all of them need to be put off.
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You need to want the best for people. You need to think the best of Christians.
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None of those things sound like actions or attitudes that Christians should ever have.
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Now, why are we to forgive? It's a command there in Ephesians.
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And I want us to turn to Psalm 103, and we're really going to see a picture of what forgiveness is.
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Psalm 103 is a well -known psalm. Bless the Lord, O my soul, all that is within me.
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And we could probably sing that if we wanted to. But as you get down to some of the other verses, there are verses here that seem a little odd for just a psalm of thanksgiving, of gratitude.
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But when you think about it in the bigger picture, they're not. I'm going to read verses 10 to 14. And this really is a good thing that the psalmist is praising
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God for, and it is how he forgives. Look at verse 10. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
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For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.
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As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
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As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
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For he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust.
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The new English translation, the net translation of Psalm, or of verse 10, says he does not deal with us as our sins deserve.
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I like that. He does not repay us as our misdeeds deserve.
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In other words, he doesn't give us what we deserve. We talk about this often. If you think that something is not fair, maybe you'd like what you deserve.
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Are you really after justice? And the truth is, people don't want what's fair.
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We want grace. Now, sometimes
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I'll hear this. Someone will say, so -and -so did this to me, or they said that to me, and I responded in this way, a sinful way.
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What do they almost always say about that? Well, he deserved it.
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He had it coming. I mean, they could say something as odd as, you know, his actions kind of forced my hand.
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I had no choice. What do you expect when somebody is going to talk to you like that? But God does not deal with his people that way.
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He gives grace rather than justice. And, again, isn't that worthy of praising
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God? Isn't it great that God does not deal with us as we deserve?
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Can we not say with the psalmist, bless the Lord, oh, my soul, when we just think about that? Thank you, God, for not giving me what
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I deserve. Instead, those who fear him, the text says, receive chesed, his covenant love.
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And what that means is they receive an immeasurable love that is as high as the heavens are above the earth.
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It is incomprehensible. That's what the psalmist is trying to get across there. He's not giving us a measurement.
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He's just saying it's immeasurable. And it is also an immovable love.
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It is steadfast. It is not given to shifts of mood or emotion. When God sets his covenant love on one of his chosen ones, listen, he does not remove it because he cannot.
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What do you mean he cannot? Because his purpose is eternal. Look at it this way.
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We say this. When Jesus died on the cross, he died for our sins, past, present and future.
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For God, the father, then to get angry with something we do in such a way that it separates us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
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He would have to do what? He'd have to deny the finished work of Jesus. He'd have to say that's not sufficient.
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I am not. My wrath is not satisfied for this sin, but he cannot do that.
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He won't do that. He will not deny the work of Christ, nor will he, nor can he remove the sealing spirit of our sealing work of the
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Holy Spirit. The triune God never works across purposes. The father doesn't undo what the son did.
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He accepts it. This is all part of their plan. The covenant love of the triune
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God is immovable, unshakable and eternal. Now look at how
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God deals with the sin of those upon whom he has set his covenant love, his affection.
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Text tells us that he removes our transgressions from us. He lifts them from us.
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He takes them off of us. And of course, we know now looking back at the cross, we know exactly where those sins went.
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They went on our savior at the cross. He paid the price at Calvary. But notice how far
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God removes our sins from us. As far as the east is from the west.
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Now, again, is the objective to talk about the measurements? Are we to look at a compass and try to figure it out or sort it out?
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Listen to what James Montgomery Boyce says. He says the psalmist is trying to point out that however many miles you think lie between west and east, you cannot look two ways at once.
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Try it. Try it at home, kids. Try to look east and west at the same time. You have to turn your back on one in order to look in the direction of the other.
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When God forgives us, he puts our sin and us on two different horizons.
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So when he looks at our sin, he's no longer looking at us. And when he looks at us, he's no longer looking at his sin.
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And you say, well, wait a minute. God is everywhere. He's on my presence. Okay, this is anthropomorphic language to make a point.
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It's not saying literally. But the point is God now views us this way. And he can't see our sin.
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Our sin is behind him, so to speak. That is how God forgives.
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Our sin no longer in his view. He looks at us and he sees the perfection of Christ. Our sin is dealt with.
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It is forever put away. It is behind him, as it were. As our creator,
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God knows how helpless we are to obtain forgiveness of sin. He's mindful that we are but dust.
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We couldn't do it on our own. We are animated dust. We live because he has imparted his breath of life into us.
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We are dependent upon him for life. And we have nothing meritorious in us.
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All our hope is in Christ, in his work. Nothing we can do.
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Now let's go back to Ephesians 4. And here's the ultimate question.
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Do you forgive others as God in Christ forgave you? Do you put the sins, as it were, behind you?
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Do you just look on that person now and all you see is a forgiven person? No more cognizance.
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No more thinking about their sin. You're done with it. Just like God is done with it.
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Do you think to yourself, that sin that that person committed against me, it was actually a sin against God, and guess what?
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God's no longer angry with that person. That person is in Christ. That sin is behind God.
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How can I hold it against him? If God has forgiven that person, how can
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I not forgive them? So why don't we forgive?
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Why is it such a great challenge? Why is it so hard to forgive like God does? Because it's against our nature.
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It's against our own sense of self -worth. All those books written about how valuable we should see ourselves.
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This is the problem. Our natural response is to withhold forgiveness. To be angry.
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To maybe even want vengeance. To see the sinner crawl, grovel, beg.
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But thanks be to God that we're not left to our own natural devices. We're not left on our own. We have a supernatural helper, the
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Holy Spirit. We are not slaves to sin. We are not slaves to our passions and emotions.
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So what happens? That person comes to you and they say, Steve, will you forgive me? They probably won't call you Steve. But they say,
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Steve, will you forgive me? And you say, absolutely. But you really don't.
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Well, what happens? First of all, you start getting angry, but you also have this little voice we like to call a conscience.
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It's the Holy Spirit making you aware of the fact that you haven't really forgiven that person.
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Forgiveness is not easy, but it's something that we are commanded to do. We are to forgive in the same way as God has forgiven us in Christ.
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J. Adams says that forgiveness is a promise. If you tell someone,
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I forgive you, this is what you ought to mean. And these three things,
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I think, are priceless. He says, this is what it ought to mean. Number one, I will not bring it up with you again.
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You ask my forgiveness, I'm giving it to you. I'm done with it. You don't have to say,
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I'll never bring it up with you again, but that needs to be your attitude. You need to say, I am done with this issue.
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As far as I'm concerned, it never happened. Second, ought here.
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I will not tell others about this. You mean to tell me you're going to forgive this person? Yes, I forgive you, and then you're going to go tell other people?
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That's not forgiveness. Again, what's the goal? Even if we walk through Matthew 18, church discipline, always the goal is to do what was sin.
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Maximize it, broadcast it, maybe put out a newsletter. You know, all the sins of BBC.
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We'll just kind of publish that, hand it out every week. The goal is to minimize it. Why? Because love covers a multitude of sins.
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We want to love other people. We want to cover their sins. We will not tell others about it.
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His third ought. I will not rehearse the details of this to myself.
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What does he mean? You won't bring it up to that person again.
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You won't tell other people about it, but you're going to go home and you're going to brood about it. You're going to think about how that person hurt you, how they bothered you.
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You're going to think about all the things that they said. You're going to make it so that you can, you know, if you ever get around to writing that autobiography, you're going to be able to fill, you know, 14, 15 pages with everything that happened.
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You know, when he walked in the room, I noticed the aroma of death upon him, you know, whatever.
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You're going to, you're going to rehearse this whole thing. You're going to just like, I want to replay this over and over and over again in my mind.
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No. What did the Psalmist say? How does God forgive? As far as East is from the
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West, and that's how we need to forgive. Don't dwell on it. Don't think about it. Forget it.
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Put it behind you. Remove it. In your mind, it ought to be a done deal.
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History. The best thing that could possibly happen is if that person comes up to you again and says, you know,
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I'm really sorry about whatever it was. Would you forgive me? Again, you just go, okay, like it never happened the first time because you can't remember.
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That should be the objective. One more cross -reference.
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Let's go to Matthew 18. No, we're not going to talk about church discipline.
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Very well -known section of Scripture. Matthew 18, beginning in verse 21.
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Then Peter came up and said to Him, Jesus, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?
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As many as seven times. Jesus said to him, I do not say seven times, but 70 times seven.
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And as you may have heard many times, that doesn't mean 490. You're not just like chomping at the bit for, you know, 490 or 491 or whatever.
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But he goes on and he gives this parable. And I think this is indicative of how many of us sometimes view forgiveness.
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Verse 23. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.
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When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10 ,000 talents.
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That's a lot of money. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made.
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So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me and I will pay you everything.
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And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave the debt.
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But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, a fraction of what he had owed the king.
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And seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me and I will pay you the same words.
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He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed.
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And they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant,
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I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?
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And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt.
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So also my heavenly father will do to everyone, every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.
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Here's the point. The point is if you view yourself as the sinner who's been forgiven the 10 ,000 talents, when someone comes up to you and they've sinned against you, you need to think of them as the person who owes you 100 denarii.
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To put it not too politely, it's chump change. It's nothing.
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Here's the problem. The problem is we think too little of our own sin. We think too little of our own offenses against God.
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We think too highly of ourselves. But too little of our own sin, we don't understand what we've been forgiven.
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If our focus was on how much we've been forgiven, we'd be quick to forgive.
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We'd be eager to forgive. It would be a joy and a privilege and a pleasure to forgive others because we would think in some small way,
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I can emulate God. I can act towards others as he has acted toward me.
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It's not a perfect analogy, but in some way I could do that. Listen to what Hendrickson said.
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He said, to forgive just as God in Christ forgave means just as freely, generously, wholeheartedly, spontaneously, and eagerly.
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Listen, God is a God of forgiveness, a God who loves to forgive sinners.
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How can we who name the name of Christ, who claim to be his followers, not be eager to forgive, not want to forgive, think that we have some right to hang on to our anger?
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I think one of the surest marks of a Christian is their capacity to forgive.
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I mean, think about it this way. If you don't like to forgive others, are you sure you're a
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Christian? One of the Puritans wrote this. He said, that cannot be a true faith, in other words, a saving faith, which does not work by love, nor that a true love, which does not act in the way of forgiveness.
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One might suppose, did we not know the contrary, both by experience and observation, that it would be at once the easiest and the pleasantest of all duties for the man who professes to have received the forgiveness from God to forgive an offender, that in the fullness of his gratitude, joy, and love for having received the pardon of his twice 10 ,000 sins, and in the consciousness of his inability to make any adequate returns to God, he would hasten to his offending brother and say,
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I've had so much forgiven that I freely forgive you all.
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It would seem as if by a moral, by a kind of moral necessity, a forgiven man must be a forgiving man.
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Again, are you a forgiver? God is. Let me put it another way, or maybe a slightly different way.
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We should view life through basically cross -shaped lenses.
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If we think, if we just look at people, look at incidents that occur to us through the lens of the cross, if we think what we have been granted in Christ Jesus, what
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He suffered on our behalf, that we might be forgiven all of our sins, I think that changes how we view other people.
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It ought to change how we view other people. If you want joy, if you want to have peace, if you want to be at peace with others, live this way.
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Think this way. View life in light of being a great sinner, forgiven by a gracious God, and therefore, one who is eager to forgive others, eager to treat the sins of others as far as east is from the west.
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Let's pray. Father, we are sinful people.
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Before we were saved, we did not care for You at all. We were Your enemies. We hated
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You. But You graciously saved us. You transformed our thinking.
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You gave us new affections, new loves, new desires. Father, You have commanded us to extend some measure of grace to others, to think about other sinful people like us, to consider them and their actions, and to be willing and eager and joyous that we can forgive others, to think in some small way we can act as You do, that we can reflect the love that You have shed upon us toward those that we claim to love, those in the body of Christ that we ought to love, those that we rub elbows with, we see all the time.
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Father, let us not be people who keep long accounts, who long to keep track of the sins of others, rehearse them, practice them, keep track of them.
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But Lord, let us be quick to forgive, eager to forgive, gracious and forgiving.
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Father, even as You have been to us, You are a great
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God filled with love, compassion, loving kindness, grace.