A Catechism On Forgiveness

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What is a catechism? Have you ever been a catechumen?
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Is catechism strictly Roman Catholic? A catechism is a way to teach people religious truth through a series of questions and answers.
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It's a way to really instill in the person and ingrain in their minds, like the old Puritans would say, to screw the truth of the
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Bible into the minds and souls of the people. Just a common way of question and answer.
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It's an instructional way of teaching. I remember when my kids were really little.
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By the way, I miss Haley and Luke so much, but if I mention any of the kids in a sermon by name, they get one dollar.
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And so now that Luke and Haley are gone, I can just say their names all that I want. Never have to pay.
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I remember catechizing Haley when she was probably three or four, and those questions and answers are still in my mind.
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Who made you? God made me. What else did God make? God made all things.
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Why did God make you? For His own glory. How can you glorify God? By loving
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Him and keeping His commandments. It's a way to teach people deep truth about a religious system through questions and answers.
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And it doesn't have to be specifically Christian. I found the cult of Mithras, first to fourth century
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A .D., they would educate their members into secret teachings in caves with questions and answers.
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Zodiac catechism asks the question, where is the animal, O Lanu, and where is the man?
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Answer, of course you all know, fuse into one, O master of life. Repeating over and over and over truths to instill into the minds of people.
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The word catechism comes from a Greek word, catecheo, it means to teach out loud, to teach orally.
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And probably my four favorite are the most famous four catechisms in the
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Christian realm. Luther's small catechism, Calvin's Geneva catechism,
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Heidelberg catechism, and Westminster. Let me just give you a few random samples. Luther's small catechism.
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What's the first commandment? Answer, you shall have no other gods. What does this mean?
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You shall love, fear, and trust in God above all things. And you just keep repeating these things over and over and you go from one question to the next to the next and pretty soon people know doctrine.
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Calvin's 1545 Geneva catechism. What is the chief end of human life? Answer, to know
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God by whom men were created. Question two, what reason have you for saying so?
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Answer, because He created us and placed us in this world to be glorified in us.
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Heidelberg catechism. How many things are necessary for you to know that you may live and die happily?
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If you want to summarize all of the world, how many do I need to know? One, five, 500.
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Catechism, Heidelberg answers three. How great my sins are, number one.
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Number two, how I may be delivered from all my sins. And three, how shall
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I express my gratitude to God for such deliverance? Guilt, grace, gratitude.
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Question and answers to try to fortify, to try to give a sound foundation for Christian truths.
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And you know, of course, Westminster Shorter catechism. What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify
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God and to enjoy Him forever. So catechisms teach
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Christian principles in forms of questions and answers, and they're very effective. So this morning, if you'll open your
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Bibles to Ephesians chapter one, let me give you a forgiveness catechism. A catechism on forgiveness.
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Two weeks ago, I was teaching from Matthew 18. And remember, Peter said to Jesus, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?
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As many as seven times. You know, the rabbis forgave three times. We'll double that and add one for good measure.
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Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times.
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That is 490 times. And that people who have been forgiven much should forgive much.
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It would be wrong to be forgiven all your sins because of Christ's work and then not forgive other people when they sin against you.
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And so in light of that, I had lots of questions about forgiveness. Somebody came up to me at the door and they asked me a question.
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And they said, well, pastor, in light of all these things that you taught about forgiveness, this is really the basic concept, right?
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And actually, it wasn't the basic concept. And so I thought to myself, today, a forgiveness catechism to reinforce
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Christian truths that many of you will know that will help you think properly about God and His forgiveness.
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And it will help you forgive others as well. I have 10 questions. Some catechisms have 50 questions, 100 questions.
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I have just 10. And I know I can get through them today because we got through the 10 at the first service. And I wanna tell you upfront, especially if you're younger and you're saying it's a 50 minute sermon, 10 questions, five minutes a shot.
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Pastors always do the same thing. They take too much time on the first questions and then they rush through the last ones. So if you're going by time,
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I don't know what to tell you. Forgiveness catechism. And really friends,
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I know many of these things you know, but on a real practical level, I thought to myself, you know, we are all sinful people and we sin against one another in the church and at home, in the world, and we want to make sure we're forgiving people.
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And the tenor with Jesus in Matthew 18 was a striking tenor. It was a fearful thing.
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When those people didn't forgive it, it roused up the anger in that king and master. And we just want to make sure we're a forgiving people.
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And so you could almost call today Forgiveness 101, back to the basics of forgiveness.
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So we think properly and then we'll do in light of what we think. Catechism question number one on forgiveness.
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Is there forgiveness found in any other besides Christ Jesus? Is there forgiveness in anyone else besides Jesus Christ?
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Now our day teaches pluralism. Many gods. Many truths.
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And it denies the exclusivity of Jesus. That is to say, if there's truth in all religion, then this religion of Jesus and Christianity can't be the only true truth, the only singular truth.
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And our society is what? We like more than one option. And so how can we put all our eggs in the one basket of Christianity?
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We believe in many ways to God. There are many paths to God. Many ways to get there. Isaiah 43 says that there's no
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God formed before me and there will be none after me. Isaiah 44 6, it says
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I'm the first and the last and there's no God besides me. Isaiah 45, I am the
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Lord, there's no other. Besides me, there's no God. And every one of you would,
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I think at this church, say that there's salvation in no one else for there's no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be what?
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Saved. You would affirm with me when Jesus said in John 14, I am the way and the truth and the life.
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No one comes to the Father except through me. It's a very exclusive religion. There's one way to heaven.
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There's one mediator between God and man. It's the God -man. It's the man -Christ Jesus. Now if you could get forgiveness in lots of different religions, then we should be fully set to study those, to worship those gods of those religions.
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But there's only one that grants us forgiveness. And if you take a look at Ephesians 1, verse 7,
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Paul's writing to the church at Ephesus and other churches, he just blasts with this praise that starts off in chapter 1, verse 3,
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Blessed be God in the Father. God, You're to be praised because of election found in verses 4, 5, and 6.
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And now he starts praising God in verse 7 for what? In Him, and you could read this if you want, in Jesus alone we have redemption.
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There's no redemption, no forgiveness, no releasing of sins in any other. And you can just see how this goes against society because we want to be open.
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We want to be tolerant. There's many truths, many paths to God. This is important too because if you have been forgiven and there's two gods, how do you split the forgiveness praise?
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The praise for forgiveness rather. So let's say you had two gods and you got a little bit of forgiveness for both. You'd have to go like 50 -50 for praise and thanksgiving and gratitude and blessed be this
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God's some or the others. But what if there were three gods? I mean, that was always my conundrum. If three gods granted me forgiveness, three separate gods, then how would
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I divide the praise and thanks? When my mother died, we, my brother, my sister and I had to split the inheritance.
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I think it was like 2 .3 billion. I mean, it was just so much. I was glad to be the firstborn because I received 33 .34%.
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My sister and brother got 33 .33%. Made an extra five bucks out of the deal,
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I think. If there's a split of gods and there's ten gods, how do you divide up praise and thanksgiving?
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And if you're not a Christian and you know you've got sin and you feel the debt and the guilt, which one do you go to?
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But Paul says there's only one. God's not impressed with anyone else except His Son. This is my beloved
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Son in whom I'm well pleased. Well pleased in this one alone. Look at the text, in whom, in Christ.
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All the blessings in Christ. Nothing that you have in terms of blessing can be found outside union with Christ.
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Sola Christus. In an age of pluralism and open theology and wider mercy, how do you get to heaven?
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Forgiveness is found in Jesus Christ alone. 1 John 5, the one who believes in the
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Son of God has the witness in himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son.
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Who are you to tell me there's only one person to grant forgiveness? That's what the world says.
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That's what the society says. Paul even knew this as he wrote to Corinth, for the word of the cross is to those who are perishing, what?
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Foolishness. If you take a look at the text, in Him we have what?
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Redemption. We have a deliverance. That's what the word redemption means.
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If you were a Jew, what would flood through your mind as you were thinking about redemption? You'd think Israel enslaved to Egypt.
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How can they get out the most powerful army in the world? And God with His mighty right arm just rescues.
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He delivers. He redeems out of the land of Egypt from the hand of Pharaoh. And now this is spiritual redemption.
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Slave to Pharaoh. Oh, it's worse for us because we were slaves to sin.
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And now we've been redeemed through Christ's work. And that word redemption there means to emancipate.
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Think for a second if you would with me. The world says the unbeliever, the sinner's free.
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Free will, free choice, free everything. Free indeed, born free, free as the wind blows.
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The younger ones don't know that. Google it. But we're not free.
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Unbelievers aren't free at all. We're slaves to sin. We're bound. You read Ephesians chapter two. Satan, world system, culture, our own sin.
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And we're bound and we need to be freed. We're in the slave market of sin. And in Him and Him alone, the text says, we have, isn't it interesting?
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Look at it. It's present tense. We currently possess redemption. Oh yes, there was a redemption accomplished at Calvary and applied when we got saved.
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But we have it right now. We have redemption in this one Christ Jesus. We have it.
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Released us. I love Titus. It talks the same way. Titus two, He gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from every lawless deed.
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Can you imagine every lawless deed that served as a ratchet, served as a cable tie, ratcheting down your soul and you can't get it off?
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God says, because of the son's death, released, free, purified.
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Galatians three, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.
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The slave market of sin. That's why we sing songs about this. Redeemed, redeemed, how
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I what? Love to proclaim it. Jesus is the only one. If you're someone here today and you're not a
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Christian and you need to be forgiven, there's only one person who can forgive you. Only one who can bear your punishment.
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And His name is Jesus. Would you flee to Him by faith in the risen Savior? Question two, catechism on forgiveness number two.
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How costly was it for God to forgive you? How costly was it for God to forgive you?
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For the Christian, this should help us with our thanksgiving. And it's going to help you when you have to forgive someone else because it's costly to forgive others.
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It cost you something to say, I will treat you like this never happened. You've asked for my forgiveness.
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I've granted it. And I will restore fellowship completely, fully. And yes, it's gonna cost.
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It's gonna cost me having that card in my back pocket that I could play anytime I want to say, remember what you did.
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It's gonna cost me my advantage over you. It's going to cost me because I really was hurt.
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It was an awful thing that you did, a sinful thing to do. But in light of my forgiveness,
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I forgive you. It's costly. Take a look at Ephesians chapter one, verse seven. Paul goes on to say, not only in him we have redemption, but now we can figure out what the price of the redemption is.
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If redemption is to buy out of a slave pit, it costs something. What's the price? Through his what?
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Blood. That's the ransom money is blood. Matthew 20, the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his what?
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Give his life a ransom for many. It was Christ's life.
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It was Christ's death paid for redemption. Now, when I first think of blood, what do you think of?
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I'll tell you what I think of. I think of composition, plasma. I think of college and you need to get an extra 40 bucks so you go give some blood, right?
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I think of red blood cells and hemoglobin and enzymes are in there. What makes blood red?
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I think of white blood cells and corpuscles, leukocytes and thrombocytes.
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I mean, it's just the blood, right? The people who are around Jesus when they were beating his face to a pulp, when the blood splattered on them, they were redeemed, right?
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Just a little blood bath. So when we sing, what can wash away my sins?
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Nothing but the thrombocytes of Jesus. It just doesn't have a ring to it, does it? Are you washed in the leukocytes?
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What do you mean blood? Now, when you begin to think like a
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Jew for just a second, you say without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness. Or you begin to think like a
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Jew, you don't say the sacrificial lamb had to be strangled. It had to be sacrificed.
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Yes, Jesus bled, but even when you ponder this, I can think of many more ways to make a bloody execution than crucifixion because there's not that much blood in a crucifixion.
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Guillotining, blood. Drawn and quartered, blood. Crucifixion, not so much.
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So what's all the blood talk? Because for the Jew and for Paul the Christian and for us, blood is a symbol of sacrificial death.
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It's shorthand, it's an abbreviation. Vicarious substitution in our place, on our behalf, with bloodshed that leads to death.
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There's death. It's an abbreviation for Christ's substitutionary death.
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Ritterbo said crucifixion was not particularly bloody. When therefore the blood of Christ is referred to, it is not so much of the manner of his death, but because of its significance as sacrifice.
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That's the idea. Sacrifice. Sin costs life. There must be death. Jesus dies for the ungodly, for the sinner.
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How could that be? Why can't God just be kind of like grandpa? It's okay. Like when grandma told me,
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Grandma Nona, when I was getting babysat, if you do that one more time, little mister, are you gonna get that yardstick that we got down at the hardware store on your backside?
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And I walked over to that little yardstick, and I picked it up, broke it over my knee, and gave it to grandma.
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And she still didn't spank me. Lloyd -Jones says, God the
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Father is no indulgent father who just says, All right, my child, come back all is well.
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No, sin is so bad it's got to be punished. And it's so bad because it's against God, and it has to be punished.
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And it's either punished by God on us or on his son. No wonder 1
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Peter then makes so much more sense. And it just warms the soul when you say, knowing that you are not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your feudal ways of life inherited from your fathers, but with what?
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A precious blood as of the lamb unblemished, spotless, the blood of Christ.
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God just didn't give some thing. He gave his son. God just didn't say, you're forgiven.
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Let there be light. Let there be forgiveness, because God's economy of justice and righteousness and holiness wouldn't allow that.
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When a man said sin is so terrible, so foul, so vile that nothing could deal with it but the blood of Christ.
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It's not a patching over, a covering over. It's not saying that God said, don't worry all is well.
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It's God showing us what sin is really like and dealing with it. It's expensive.
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It's costly. It costs Jesus his life. And so when we understand that and now we have to grant forgiveness.
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And when you hear those words from someone, could you please forgive me? And then you have to say to yourself, if I say this,
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I can't hold it. It's gonna be costly. I forgive you.
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It's good to be reminded that it costs to forgive. For us, it's free.
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For Jesus, it was his life. Question three, Catechism question number three, a series of questions and answers just trying to help our church understand what forgiveness is because it's such a topic that makes me think about the personal work of Christ.
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And it's very, talk about relevant, talk about daily that we need to deal with this subject.
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Unless you've reached the state of sinless perfection and you're a Keswick, you need this topic, right?
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That wasn't a joke, but that was. Question three, how complete is
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God's forgiveness? How complete is God's forgiveness? It's gonna be practical as well because maybe you'll say to yourself, this person did something against me and I can forgive all these things that they did, but that one particular thing
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I can never forgive. Well, let's figure out how
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God forgives. And aren't you glad that when God forgives you, he forgives you all your sins and he doesn't just hold one back.
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Look at Ephesians 1, seven again. In Christ, we have redemption. We currently have this emancipation from our sins through his blood, through his sacrificial death, the forgiveness of our trespasses.
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Isn't that amazing? All, it's a plural, the forgiveness of our past trespasses.
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No, forgiveness of all our trespasses until we believe. No, forgiveness of our trespasses past, present and future.
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The answer is yes, every trespass, Jesus paid for on the cross of every
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Christian, every believer in Yahweh. And when
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I was a kid, were you like me growing up in a sacramental system? I knew I was sinful. I knew Jesus paid for sins, but here's what
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I was taught basically or how it interpret the theological instruction. If I don't confess every one of my sins before I go to sleep, if I die in my sleep, where am
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I gonna end up? And so it was nerve wracking, trying to just, it was like Luther -esque, trying to figure out all the different things
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I did. I didn't even know my sin was what I didn't do. I thought my sin was just what I did do. All these things that I thought in my mind and it's so exacting.
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And remember, I got a little bit older, I'm 21. I had a tonsillectomy and they, I think they take out tonsils back in those days and what, adenoids?
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What's an adenoid? I have no idea. I guess you don't need them anymore. And I remember home from college, have the surgery at home, 21 years old.
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I'm too old really to have my tonsils out, but they take them out anyway. And I got a cold.
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And so they said, here's what you do. When you're coughing with your throat, you're gonna get a re -bleed and you could actually die from a re -bleed and a tonsillectomy.
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So cough from your diaphragm. Okay, I will. Well, how do you tell yourself at night when you're sleeping to cough from your diaphragm?
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I'm coughing from my throat like I always do. I wake up in the night in Omaha at 21 years old, there's just blood everywhere.
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Now I can't figure out where my iPad is in 1981 and WebMD, I couldn't figure that out.
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So I get the yellow pages and open it up to Clarkson Hospital. I figured I was born there, I might as well die there.
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Gonna call them, I got the re -bleed, I'm 21. And in my mind, it's like, I better make sure all these sins are accounted for and I've got to confess every one of them because if I die with one unconfessed sin,
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I'm going straight to hell. Whatever happened. Well, kids,
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I want you to know I made it. Actually, I woke up, it was Christmas morning and there you go.
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When God forgives a sinner by the death of Christ, every sin that the sinner commits and will commit,
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Jesus pays for. It is a full redemption. And look at the text again, forgiveness of sins.
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It's plural. And what I love about this word forgiveness, there's a variety of words for forgiveness in the New Testament.
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This word means to send away. They're all sent away.
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All your sins are gone. All the sins that haunt and they're in the closet as far as God is concerned, they're just sent away to another zip code.
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And I'll tell you the language stems from the Old Testament.
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When he finishes atoning for the holy place in the tent of meeting in the altar, he shall offer the live goat.
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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.
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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.
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And the goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.
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The scapegoat's gone. It's sent away. It's not there on your shoulder anymore.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 gonna step over it anyway.
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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.
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Colossians 2 says the same thing, having forgiven us all our transgressions.
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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 what?
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West. No wonder Micah says, who's a God like you who pardons iniquity?
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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.
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That's Colossians 2. Question four. Question four.
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Here kids now where we start to speed up a little bit. Question four in our catechism on forgiveness.
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Is there a difference between judicial and parental forgiveness? Let's turn our
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Bibles to 1 John chapter one please. Let me phrase it this way. If you're a
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Christian and all your sins have been paid for by Jesus like you just talked about in the last point,
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Mike, why do I need to ever ask God for forgiveness today? In other words,
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I'm a child of God and I've been forgiven past, present, and future. Justification, just as if I've never sinned, just as if I've always obeyed.
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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.
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So why do I have to ask for forgiveness now? That's parental forgiveness. And you will see that for the unbeliever,
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God is judge, but for the believer, God is Father.
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How do we deal with our Father when we sin against Him? How do you deal with your mother when you sin against her?
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Don't you ask her for forgiveness even though you're always part of the family? Let's find out 1
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John chapter one verses eight through 10. This is all going to drive us to say even as Christians, we need to ask
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God for forgiveness, for fellowship, for closeness, for camaraderie, for an intimate relationship.
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Even though we're forgiven by the judge in a judicial courtroom, there's still a family relationship that we have with the
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Father that should make us just like when we have a desire to breathe, a desire to confess our sins.
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1 John 1 .8, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
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If we confess our sins, if we agree with God to say the same thing as, that's what confession is.
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God, I just agree with you about this. He is what? He's always faithful,
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He's endlessly faithful and just, always just, endlessly just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. God, I agree with you,
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I line myself up with you, I acknowledge it, I admit it. I'm a sheep, I've gone astray,
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I've gone to my own way. Look at chapter two, verse one of 1 John. My little children,
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I'm writing these things to you that you may not sin. Christian, I'm writing this to you.
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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
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Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. So friends, when you are forgiven by God, because you've by grace believed on the
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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 even feeling of distance, the way back is through confession.
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God, I agree with you and I know you're not gonna kick me out of the family for this sin, but I have sinned and with the
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Father's displeasure, you're displeased and chastening me, please forgive me. That's called parental forgiveness.
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So when someone at the church here adopts someone, maybe they adopt one child, a two child, children, three children, four children, anybody wanna adopt five around here?
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Going for a record at BBC. The judicial court papers are done.
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This is now your legal guardian. When that child disobeys the mom or dad, that court paper can't be undone.
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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
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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.
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You don't have to ask God for forgiveness as a Christian. I don't wanna say this, but I'll do it in a no compromise style.
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Just try that for a while and see how it works. Try it with your spouse for a while and see how that works.
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It doesn't work too well. We are judicially declared righteous and we'll always be based on the work of another.
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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.
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And so I'm driving down the street on Tomahawk Boulevard. It's probably 1 .30, two in the morning, dad's out of town.
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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
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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.
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I walk into the basement, gonna go straight into my room, bleed from a tonsillectomy.
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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
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Christian yet, but she said, I'll talk to you about that in the morning. Wow, just give me my punishment now in the morning.
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So I was not kicked out from being a child in Avendroth, but there was a fellowship that was broken.
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So Christian, be glad that even your future sins are paid for by Christ Jesus. It's such a great death.
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But don't say somehow now, you don't need to say to the Lord, please forgive me, cleanse me.
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Question number five. Can I forgive someone if they're dead? Some very practical questions now that I get asked often.
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Can I forgive someone if they're already dead? Now there are people that have hurt and sinned against us, that hurt us and they did wicked, horrible things, unspeakable things, or maybe less than.
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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.
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Please forgive me. I would do anything if you could have it in your heart to just release me from this guilt.
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What if they're dead? Well, one of the things we need to remember is we're not to talk to the dead, right?
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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.
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Dead people, by the way, if those dead people died in Christ Jesus, they're perfect, aren't they?
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They don't need forgiveness. They're whole. They're glorified. They don't need your forgiveness.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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What if, what if, what if? The best thing you can do is do this, is just pray to the
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Lord. You, the person who's alive today, Lord, would you just make sure I have no bitterness in my heart?
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Would you just make sure I have no resentment towards me? If truth be told, I'm worse than they are, than they were.
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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.
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God, your sovereign plan didn't work out for me because the way I want it is for them to be alive so I can take care of this.
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No, we trust in the Lord and do good. Question six, catechism forgiveness, question number six.
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What if I can't forgive God? What if I can't forgive God? What if, what if you realize the sovereignty of God?
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He ordains, He decrees, He determines, He sets, He fix, He appoints. And you realize, you know what?
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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.
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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
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God, let me just remind you of one thing quickly. When Isaiah saw
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God and all the seraphim were swirling around and they were saying what?
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Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory.
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God needs no forgiveness because He's never sinned. He's never transgressed. He's never trespassed.
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He's never done an iniquitous thing. God is good, the psalmist says, and what? Does good.
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God's never sinned against you. God doesn't need to be forgiven. Jesus didn't do a lot of things on earth.
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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.
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Jesus never said, this is how I pray, why? Because He never sinned, He never trespassed. God is holy in all that He does.
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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.
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God is holy to the nth degree. Holy, no. Holy, holy, no, but He's holy, holy, holy.
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He's ethically pure. He's morally pure. He's transcendently pure. He is without spot, without sin, and everything
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He does is right. Number seven, doesn't it all start with forgiving yourself?
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Doesn't it all start with forgiving yourself? I preached on forgiveness once and someone came up to me afterwards and said,
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I agree with that, Pastor, it's important. And doesn't it all start with forgiving yourself? And then
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I thought, you know what? That's an honest question because we're so taught by psychology and everyone else to forgive ourselves.
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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
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I get it. So I thought I would put it in here. What about forgiving yourself? Is it biblical?
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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?
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The answer is no. Psychology today says, some people cannot forgive themselves for their transgressions.
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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.
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Now, if I had hair, I would pull it out. You're not supposed to laugh at that.
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I forgive you though. If you want to just go to WikiHow, forgiving yourself can be much harder than forgiving everyone else.
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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.
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So it is perfectly fine to say, I'm not proud of what I've done and how
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I've devalued myself, but I'm moving on for the sake of my health and my well -being and those around me.
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And if you really struggle with forgiving yourself, take up meditation, affirm your self -worth.
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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.
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Keep a diary. This isn't just in psychology, forgive yourself.
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The most masculine Bible teacher on all of TV, Joyce Meyer, said. She is, she's the most masculine,
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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.
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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,
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I will. Joyce, the next time you ask God to forgive you and then feel guilty, open your mouth and say,
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God forgave me. There's power in the tongue. Friends, we don't forgive ourselves.
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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.
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What's the key word that the world doesn't want to hear, but it's the right word. It's a liberating word.
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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,
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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?
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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.
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Is that what it says? No, deny himself, take up the cross and follow me.
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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
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God for forgiveness and he's faithful and he's just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us. We don't forgive ourselves.
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All right, three more, we gotta go fast. Here we go, as fast as we can go. Question eight, catechism on forgiveness.
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What's the difference between, oh, let me rephrase it. Must all forgiveness be transactional?
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Must all forgiveness be transactional? Turn to Mark chapter 11, please. Must all forgiveness be transactional?
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Friends, most forgiveness contains a transaction. Will you please forgive me?
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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?
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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.
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There's a transaction. Will you forgive? Yes, I will. And most forgiveness is found like that.
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And some Bible scholars, especially in the new thetic counseling movement, will say that's the only kind of forgiveness.
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But here we see in Mark chapter 11, verse 25, there's a letting go as well.
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If forgiveness that's transactional can be done, that's a very good thing. I'm not saying anything negative about transactional forgiveness.
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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.
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If you have anything against anyone so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you your transgressions.
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You're standing there and you've got something against someone. Jesus says, you can just let it go. You can forgive.
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You can just let it be gone. Anyone, anything, yes, just let it be gone.
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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.
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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.
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I just let it all go. Must all forgiveness be transactional?
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No. And then two more. What's the best way to grant forgiveness to another person?
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Number nine. What's the best way to grant forgiveness? Someone comes to you and says, will you please forgive me?
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What do you do? I said it last week. You can either turn there. I'll just read it for you.
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Ephesians 4, 32, forgive one another just as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.
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If you say, I don't feel like it, remember Ephesians 4, 32? Forgiveness wasn't a feeling.
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It was a promise. Tabidiana Whaley has a lot of good things in his blogs about how to give forgiveness and how to grant them.
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Someone says, will you please forgive me? We say, I will treat you like this never happened. Yes, I will.
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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?
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And Corrie Ten Boom said, the Holocaust survivor said, I distinctly remember forgetting.
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So for people who say, you know, I forgive you, but I won't forget. Here, this is a non -remembering. It's an active,
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I'm not gonna bring this up to you anymore. I'm not gonna bring it up to the kids anymore. I'm not gonna bring it up to the elders anymore.
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I'm not gonna 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
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Trinity. He doesn't bring it up to you anymore. He doesn't hold it against you. Will you forgive me? I forgive you.
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And I'll keep what you've done against me in my back pocket, because there's gonna be a time I need this to pry my way back against you, to manipulate you.
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That's not the right way to do it. And this is so hard. What's missing in these verses?
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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,
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I repent, forgive him. What didn't I read to you? They say, forgive me. You have to say, yes.
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What did I not read to you in Luke chapter 17? Be on your guard, because that's so hard to do.
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It's a hard thing to do. Be on your guard. When people say, will you please forgive me?
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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?
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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,
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I'm sorry, without apologizing. Non -apology apologies. I think there's even new words in the dictionary about the non -apologizing apologies.
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Well, if I said anything or did anything that offended you, I'm sorry you feel that way.
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Not even taking blame for ourselves, I'm sorry you feel that way. I deeply regret. Mistakes were made.
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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, you know, boulder coming down the hill of a mistake.
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A mistake was made. I apologize if I offended anyone. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.
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Sorry you're offended. Sorry you're disturbed. Sorry you didn't get the joke.
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Sorry you're upset. I'm sorry, but you're wrong too. I'm sorry you feel that way.
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If you want me to say I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry we'll have to disagree.
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I'm sorry you're so angry right now. And one man said, that's not just unsatisfying, it's insulting.
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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
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I'm sorry, not I apologize, not these are my reasons. You should just say, do you know,
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I've just been thinking about this. And 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 and against you and you only have
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I sinned and done what is what evil in your side. I've asked God to forgive me. And I'm just asking you, what
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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.
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I can't say any of these other things. I just have to own it. And I will accept responsibility for my actions.
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There are consequences to behavior. And I just would like to know if you have it in your heart, would you please forgive me?
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Question mark, pause. We don't say things like,
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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.
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Will you please forgive me? And just to think, when the penitent sinner says to God with faith,
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I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the simultaneous confession is, God, would you forgive me?
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And in explicitly, without explanation it seems, except for words like this, there's no other reason why
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God doesn't accept, but God, verse four of Ephesians two, 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.
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By grace, you have been saved. Christians are forgiven much, and they are to forgive much.
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It is a characteristic of being godly because God forgives.
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Heidelberg Catechism ends. My sermon this morning, what is your only comfort in life and death?
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Answer, that I am not my own, but belong with body and soul both in life and in death to my faithful savior,
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Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood. And anyone receiving that forgiveness will forgive others.
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Father, we would ask for your Holy Spirit's assistance. How hard are these things without your spirit?
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Impossible. We would like to be a church that forgives. Forgiving parents, forgiving children, forgiving husbands and wives, forgiving in body life.
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There's only one head of the church, Jesus Christ. He's the only sinless one, the only spotless one, and everyone else has fallen short of your glory.
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And you've forgiven us, and now we just want to show your forgiveness to other people. I pray that if there's any bitterness or brooding or resentment found in the church with relationships with one another or in families,
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I just pray, Lord, you'd be gracious to mend, to help, to be of assistance.
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I pray that you just knock down our stubbornness and our pride. And Father, for your kingdom and for your glory and for your witness and for your son, we want to forgive.
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And even for some of us, maybe we don't want to. Would you help us? To want to. And Father, may our accounts be short with one another, and may we often just cover in love what a glory it is that you covered sins.