Catechism of Forgiveness (Part 2)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth.

Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

When God forgives a sinner by the death of Christ, every sin that the sinner commits and will commit,

Jesus pays for. It is a full redemption, and look at the text again, forgiveness of sins.

It's plural. And what I love about this word forgiveness, there's a variety of words for forgiveness in the New Testament.

This word means to send away. They're all sent away. All your sins are gone.

All the sins that haunt, that are in the closet, as far as God is concerned, they're just sent away to another zip code.

And I'll tell you, the language stems from the Old Testament. When he finishes atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting in the altar, he shall offer the live goat.

Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins.

And he shall lay on the head of the goat and, here's the word, send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness.

And the goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.

The scapegoat's gone. It's sent away. It's not there on your shoulder anymore.

It's not on your back. Remember John Bunyan? I'll never forget going to Bedford, England. And John Bunyan was a tinker and he fixed pots and pans and he would go door to door and he'd have to throw all his tools in like a little knapsack, a backpack kind of thing on his back.

And boy, by the way, the heaviest thing in his little knapsack was his anvil. And how do you carry an anvil from house to house without just taking that thing and just slinging it down going, the release of the anvil off my back.

In Bedford, England now you can go see Anvil of John Bunyan, JB, it says right on there and it's this smallish but heavy burden.

And that is exactly what John Bunyan then wrote in The Pilgrim's Progress where a

Christian had a burden on his back and he just needed that thing gone, sent away, far away, removal.

That's the idea. It's removed. And if you take a look at your text again, do you notice? It's one thing to have sins forgiven when you miss the mark.

What's the text say here? Forgiveness, our removal, our sending away, our trespasses. Not just missing the mark, but I know better and I'm going to step over it anyway.

Don't trespass. Well, I will. And that's exactly what we did when we were unbelievers, deviating from the path of truth and righteousness.

Colossians 2 says the same thing, having forgiven us all our transgressions.

Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad Psalm 103 says, so far he's removed our transgressions from us, as far as the east is from the west.

No wonder Micah says, who's a God like you who pardons iniquity? Who is a

God like you who pardons iniquity? Canceling out that certificate of debt against us, erasing the blackboard, taking it out of the way, having nailed it to a cross.

That's Colossians 2. Question four. Question four. Here, kids, now where we start to speed up a little bit.

Question four in our catechism on forgiveness. Is there a difference between judicial and parental forgiveness?

Is there a difference between judicial and parental forgiveness? Let's turn our Bibles to 1

John 1, please. Let me phrase it this way. If you're a Christian and all your sins have been paid for by Jesus, like you just talked about in the last point,

Mike, why do I need to ever ask God for forgiveness today? In other words,

I'm a child of God and I've been forgiven past, present, future, justification, just as if I've never sinned, just as if I've always obeyed.

I've been given Christ's righteousness by imputation. The Father has confirmed it by the resurrection and I stand in Christ blameless and holy without blame.

So why do I have to ask for forgiveness now? That's parental forgiveness. And you will see that for the unbeliever,

God is judge, but for the believer, God is father. How do we deal with our father when we sin against him?

How do you deal with your mother when you sin against her? Don't you ask her for forgiveness even though you're always part of the family?

Let's find out. 1 John 1, verses 8 through 10. This is all going to drive us to say, even as Christians, we need to ask

God for forgiveness, for fellowship, for closeness, for camaraderie, for an intimate relationship.

Even though we're forgiven by the judge in a judicial courtroom, there's still a family relationship that we have with the

Father that should make us, just like when we have a desire to breathe, a desire to confess our sins.

1 John 1, verse 8, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, if we agree with God to say the same thing as, that's what confession is.

God, I just agree with you about this. He is what? He's always faithful.

He's endlessly faithful and just, always just, endlessly just, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. God, I agree with you.

I line myself up with you. I acknowledge it. I admit it. I'm a sheep. I've gone astray.

I've gone to my own way. Look at chapter 2, verse 1 of 1 John. My little children,

I'm writing these things to you that you may not sin. Christian, I'm writing this to you.

Even though you're forgiven past, present and future, what about now when you sin? If anyone sins, we have an advocate, a helper with the

Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. So friends, when you are forgiven by God because you've by grace believed on the

Lord Jesus Christ, all your sins are taken care of. But when you sin against God and there's a break and there's a breach and there's a subjective maybe even feeling of distance, the way back is through confession.

God, I agree with you. And I know you're not going to kick me out of the family for this sin, but I have sinned and with the

Father's displeasure, you're displeased and chasing me. Please forgive me. That's called parental forgiveness.

So when someone at the church here adopts someone, maybe they adopt one child, two child, children, three children, four children, anybody want to adopt five around here?

Going for a record at BBC. The judicial court papers are done. This is now your legal guardian.

When that child disobeys the mom or dad, that court paper can't be undone.

She or he still has the same legal guardians, but there's a fellowship broken. So when it comes to forgiveness, we ought to regularly ask

God for forgiveness when we sin against him. Do not fall into the lie of men like Bob George on the radio and people to people who will say you're already forgiven for everything.

You don't have to ask God for forgiveness as a Christian. I don't want to say this, but I'll do it in a no compromise style.

Just try that for a while and see how it works. Try it with your spouse for a while and see how that works.

It doesn't work too well. We are judicially declared righteous and will always be based on the work of another.

And then in the life of the family, I remember, I think my dad said to come home at midnight or one o 'clock in the morning and he was out of town.

And so I'm driving down the street on Tomahawk Boulevard. It's probably one 32 in the morning.

Dad's out of town. And if I can just make it into the driveway without mom waking up, I'll be fine. So I turn off the ignition on my 1967

Nova two, two door cool Chevy car. And I coast down the street, turn off my lights and make it up perfectly into the driveway home free.

I walk into the basement, going to go straight into my room, bleed from a tonsillectomy.

And there's mom standing at the top of the steps and like a really wise mother. I don't even think she was a

Christian yet, but she said, I'll talk to you about that in the morning. Just give me my punishment now in the morning.

So I was not kicked out from being a child in Avondroth, but there was a fellowship that was broken.

So Christian, be glad that even your future sins are paid for by Christ Jesus. It's such a great death, but don't say somehow now you don't need to say to the

Lord, please forgive me. Cleanse me. Question number five. Can I forgive someone if they're dead?

Some very practical questions now that I get asked often. Can I forgive someone if they're already dead? Now there are people that have hurt and sinned against us, hurt us, and they did wicked, horrible things, unspeakable things, or maybe less than, but they're dead and there can be no reconciliation.

There can be no, you sinned against me and you can't hear the words that you probably would love to hear. Please forgive me.

I would do anything if you could have it in your heart to just release me from this guilt. What if they're dead?

Well, one of the things we need to remember is we're not to talk to the dead, right? We're not to pray to the dead.

We're not to converse with the dead. I just read a Houdini biography and he didn't really believe in seances, but other people did so he used it to his advantage.

Dead people, by the way, if those dead people died in Christ Jesus, they're perfect, aren't they?

They don't need forgiveness. They're whole. They're glorified. They don't need your forgiveness.

I love Revelation 21. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, for the former things have passed away.

Those people in heaven now that have sinned against you would say, I'm so glad that Jesus had paid for these sins because it was sin.

And if they were on earth, they would say, yes, I would love to ask for your forgiveness. But what if they're an unbeliever? What if all these other things?

What if, what if, what if? What if? The best thing you can do is do this, is just pray to the

Lord, you, the person who's alive today. Lord, would you just make sure I have no bitterness in my heart?

Would you just make sure I have no resentment towards me? If truth be told, I'm worse than they are, than they were.

I've committed more sins against you and you've forgiven me. And so, Lord, just give me a resolution to live a life of faith and not go back into your plan.

God, your, your sovereign plan didn't work out for me because the way I wanted this for them to be alive so I can take care of this.

No, we trust in the Lord and do good. Question six, catechism forgiveness.

Question number six. What if I can't forgive God? What if I can't forgive

God? What if, what if you realize the sovereignty of God, he ordains, he decrees, he determines, he sets, he fix, he appoints.

And you realize, you know what? It's the sovereign hand of God. He could have stopped all this. And you know what?

At the end of the day, God, you're the one who did all this against me and I just can't seem to forgive you.

What would you tell somebody who was talking like that? I would say, friend, even though the world, even though psychologists, even though TBN and other people talk about forgiving

God, let me just remind you of one thing quickly. When Isaiah saw

God and all the seraphim were swirling around and they were saying what?

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory.

God needs no forgiveness because he's never sinned. He's never transgressed. He's never trespassed.

He's never done an iniquitous thing. God is good, the psalmist says, and what? Does good.

God's never sinned against you. God doesn't need to be forgiven. Jesus didn't do a lot of things on earth.

And one of the things Jesus never did is say, would you please forgive me? That's why he told the disciples, you pray this way, forgive us our trespasses.

Jesus never said, this is how I pray. Why? Because he never sinned. He never trespassed. God is holy in all that he does.

And so if somehow you're thinking, God, I just can't forgive you. You ought to change your mind because it is not biblical.

God is holy to the nth degree. Holy? No. Holy, holy? No, but he's holy, holy, holy.

He's ethically pure. He's morally pure. He's transcendentally pure. He is without spot, without sin, and everything he does is right.

Number seven, doesn't it all start with forgiving yourself? Doesn't it all start with forgiving yourself?

I preached on forgiveness once, and someone came up to me afterwards and said, I agree with that, pastor. It's important. And doesn't it all start with forgiving yourself?

And then I thought, you know what? That's an honest question. Because we're so taught by psychology and everyone else to forgive ourselves, that's an honest question, so let me give you the answer.

And then once the person heard the answer, the biblical answer, they're like, okay, now I get it. So I thought I would put it in here.

What about forgiving yourself? Is it biblical? Can you find any place in the Bible where you're commanded to forgive yourself?

Can you find any place in the Bible where it shows you step -by -step ways to forgive yourself? The answer is no.

Psychology today says some people cannot forgive themselves for their transgressions.

If one is truly on the path of becoming a better person and understands that their personal pain is a part of the journey, self -forgiveness will come in time.

Now, if I had here, I would pull it out. You're not supposed to laugh at that.

I forgive you, though. If you want to just go to WikiHow, forgiving yourself can be much harder than forgiving everyone else.

When you're carrying around a sense of blame for something that has happened in the past, this bundle of negativity burrowing deep into you can cause a never -ending persuasive and pervasive sense of unhappiness.

So it is perfectly fine to say, I'm not proud of what I've done and how

I've devalued myself, but I'm moving on for the sake of my health and my well -being and those around me.

And if you really struggle with forgiving yourself, take up meditation. Affirm your self -worth.

Say to yourself, I'm a beautiful person and I forgive myself. I will no longer let anger eat me away whenever a negative thought comes.

Keep a diary. And this isn't just in psychology, forgive yourself. The most masculine

Bible teacher on all of TV, Joyce Meyer, said... She is. She's the most masculine.

I'm not kidding. Although she's a heretic. If anybody can have God's love... This is all word and faith stuff, so you say it and words are containers.

I'm going to have it. If anybody can be free, I'm going to be free. If anybody can be happy, I'm going to be happy. If anybody can get over the broken past,

I will. Joyce, the next time you ask God to forgive you and then feel guilty, open your mouth and say,

God forgave me. There's power in the tongue. Friends, we don't forgive ourselves.

When you feel your conscience accusing you, when you feel the weight of burden of sin, because you've, even as a child of God, sinned, we don't forgive ourselves.

What's the key word that the world doesn't want to hear, but it's the right word. It's a liberating word.

It's a good word for the Christian. It's a word that God loves. It's the first word out of Peter's mouth for public proclamation.

Paul's mouth out of public proclamation. John the Baptist's mouth out of public proclamation. And Jesus' word, it's the word of what?

Repent. To think differently. Mark 8, and he summoned the multitude with his disciples and said to them, if anyone wishes to come after me, let him forgive himself and take up the cross and follow me.

Is that what it says? No. Deny himself, take up the cross and follow me. When we sin, we feel bad.

By the way, if you sin and don't feel bad, that's a far worse situation. But God's given us consciences, and when we feel bad, and we've sinned, we ask

God for forgiveness, and He's faithful and He's just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us. We don't forgive ourselves.

Alright, three more. We've got to go fast. Here we go. As fast as we can go. Question 8.

Catechism on forgiveness. What's the difference between... Oh, let me rephrase it.

Must all forgiveness be transactional? Must all forgiveness be transactional?

Turn to Mark chapter 11, please. Must all forgiveness be transactional? Friends, most forgiveness contains a transaction.

Will you please forgive me? The person either says, yes, I will, or no, I won't. And there's been a transaction.

So it's like there's a big ball of sin in between you, and you hand it to the person and say, would you forgive me?

They've got that big ball, that big sin ball in their hands, and they either keep it and say, no, I won't, or they throw it away.

There's a transaction. Will you forgive? Yes, I will. And most forgiveness is found like that.

And some Bible scholars, especially in the New Thetic counseling movement, will say that's the only kind of forgiveness.

But here we see in Mark chapter 11, verse 25, there's a letting go as well.

If forgiveness that's transactional can be done, that's a very good thing. I'm not saying anything negative about transactional forgiveness.

But must all forgiveness be transactional? I think the answer is no. Mark 11, 25, and whenever you stand praying, release.

Forgive. Let it go. If you have anything against anyone so that your

Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your transgressions, you're standing there and you've got something against someone,

Jesus says you can just let it go. You can forgive. You can just let it be gone. Anyone, anything, yes, just let it be gone.

There's a transactional forgiveness that's good. Will you forgive me? Yes, I will. But there's also this kind of forgiveness that we just realize who we are before God.

We're coming to worship Him. We're praying. We're singing. And we just say, you know, this thing is just eating me away.

I just let it all go. Forgiven. Must all forgiveness be transactional?

No. And then two more. What's the best way to grant forgiveness to another person? Number nine.

What's the best way to grant forgiveness? Someone comes to you and says, Will you please forgive me? What do you do?

I said it last week. You can either turn there or I'll just read it for you. Ephesians 4, 32, Forgive one another just as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.

If you say, I don't feel like it. Remember Ephesians 4, 32? Forgiveness wasn't a feeling.

It was a promise. To be Deanna Whaley has a lot of good things in his blogs about how to give forgiveness and how to grant them.

Someone says, Will you please forgive me? We say, I will treat you like this never happened. Yes, I will.

Corrie Ten Boom was sinned against by one of her colleagues. Years before she was asked a question,

Do you remember how bad this person treated you? And Corrie Ten Boom said,

The Holocaust survivor said, I distinctly remember forgetting. So for people who say,

I forgive you, but I won't forget. Here, this is a non -remembering. It's an active, I'm not going to bring this up to you anymore.

I'm not going to bring it up to the kids anymore. I'm not going to bring it up to the elders anymore. I'm not going to bring it up to the world anymore.

That's just like God. Isn't he that way? He doesn't bring it up within the Trinity. He doesn't bring it up to you anymore.

He doesn't hold it against you. Will you forgive me? I forgive you. And I'll keep what you've done against me in my back pocket because there's going to be a time

I need this to pry my way back against you, to manipulate you.

That's not the right way to do it. And this is so hard. What's missing in these verses? If your brother sins, rebuke him.

If he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, seven times a day and returns to you seven times saying,

I repent, forgive him. What didn't I read to you? They say, forgive me. You have to say, yes.

What did I not read to you in Luke chapter 17? Be on your guard. Because that's so hard to do.

It's a hard thing to do. Be on your guard. When people say, will you please forgive me?

We say, love covers a multitude of sins. And we say, I forgive you. Lastly, number 10.

Catechism question number 10. What's the best way to ask for forgiveness? This is so amazing to me.

Because we've seen in the last few weeks with the NFL scandal and other scandals, how people can say, I'm sorry without apologizing.

Non -apology apologies. I think there's even new words in the dictionary about the non -apologizing apologies.

Well, if I said anything or did anything that offended you, I'm sorry you feel that way.

Not even taking blame for ourselves. I'm sorry you feel that way. I deeply regret.

Mistakes were made. Not I made a mistake, because that would mean I did something. But a passive mistake was made.

It was like I couldn't control this boulder coming down the hill of a mistake.

A mistake was made. I apologize if I offended anyone. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.

Sorry you're offended. Sorry you're disturbed. Sorry you didn't get the joke.

Sorry you're upset. I'm sorry, but you're wrong too. I'm sorry you feel that way.

If you want me to say I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry we'll have to disagree.

I'm sorry you're so angry right now. And one man said, that's not just unsatisfying, it's insulting.

If you step on someone's foot, I'm sorry I stepped on your foot. If you've sinned against them, you should say, not

I'm sorry. Not I apologize. Not these are my reasons. You should just say, you know,

I've just been thinking about this. When David sinned against Bathsheba, against Uriah, against the nation, against his army.

He said in Psalm 51 that there was someone else he sinned against more. Against you and you only have

I sinned and done what is what? Evil in your sight. I've asked God to forgive me. And I'm just asking you, what

I did was sinful. What I did was wrong. I can't make any excuse. I can't say I had a headache. I can't say I was on steroids for the 15th day in a row.

I can't say any of these other things. I just have to own it. And I will accept responsibility for my actions. There are consequences to behavior.

And I just would like to know if you have it in your heart, would you please forgive me? Question mark, pause.

We don't say things like, I'm sorry you're hurt. And if you wouldn't have done this, I wouldn't have done that.

Maybe things would be different if you would have done such and such. Will you please forgive me?

And just to think, when the penitent sinner says to God with faith, I believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ. The simultaneous confession is, God would you forgive me?

And inexplicably, without explanation it seems, except for words like this, there's no other reason why

God does it except that God, verse 4 of Ephesians 2, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved. Christians are forgiven much, and they are to forgive much.

It is a characteristic of being godly because God forgives.

Heidelberg Catechism ends my sermon this morning. What is your only comfort in life and death?

Answer, that I am not my own, but belong with body and soul both in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood. And anyone receiving that forgiveness will forgive.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please, come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m.

We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org

or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.