"If You Forgive"

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Matthew 6:14-15

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forgivable, rather we simply express our debt and receive His free and full forgiveness.
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And to this Jesus says, when we pray, forgive us our debts, we're also praying as we forgive our debtors.
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Augustine called the fifth petition the dreadful petition, because he says in praying it we may well be condemning ourselves.
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If I'm asking God to forgive me and I have not forgiven my brother, then
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I'm actually praying condemnation on myself. It's a dreadful petition. And Jesus puts it in that stark contrast, forgive me as I forgive.
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Do I have things that I'm confessing and does anyone have anything against me? Do I have anything against anyone else?
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These are the things I have to work out if I'm to approach God and receive His forgiveness. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
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Jesus implies that His disciples will seek forgiveness as God forgives, but Jesus also implies that His disciples will seek forgiveness as they forgive.
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And if that point isn't clear enough, it's here in verses 14 and 15. If you forgive men their trespasses, your
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Heavenly Father will also forgive you. That's a conditional statement. If you do this, God will do that.
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If you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will forgive you, but in case that message got lost,
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He gives it in the negative, but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your
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Father forgive you your trespasses. So that's the point that Jesus returns to, a sharp contrast between if you forgive and if you do not forgive.
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So a point we didn't quite get to when we were in verse 12 is this, we pray as those who forgive.
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We pray for forgiveness, we pray as the forgiven, and the third point along those lines is we pray as those who forgive.
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This is what Jesus expresses, forgive us our debts as we forgive. We are those who forgive.
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That is a major part of being a Christian, to be able to forgive, to be willing to forgive, to freely and fully forgive.
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It's one of the hardest aspects of the Christian life. It's not the way the world lives, it's not what the world, the flesh, and the devil want to animate in our lives, but this is what
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Jesus calls His people to do, to forgive. We know that we come with reverence, with an honest, self -realized approach to God and prayer.
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We come confidently, even boldly to the throne when we claim His forgiveness, when we bask in the name of our
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Savior and we pray with faith, we believe in His power, we believe in His promises, we're seeking to pray according to His perfect will.
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We claim that and so often we almost thoughtlessly claim His forgiveness without running it through verses 14 and 15.
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Is there anyone that I have not forgiven? And so if we would pray for forgiveness, we must pray as those who forgive.
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That's what Jesus says. We're looking for the asterisk in the footnote when we read, if you do not forgive men their trespasses, my
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Father in heaven won't forgive yours, and we want there to be a little asterisk in a footnote, no, no, just kidding, it's really not that bad, or actually, oh this is really just an exaggeration,
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He doesn't really mean this. There is no asterisk, there is no footnote, there is no qualification.
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The grace by which we pray for forgiveness is the grace by which we freely forgive others who sin against us.
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That's what Jesus says. If James could say faith without works is a dead faith,
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Jesus here in verses 14 and 15 would say faith without forgiveness is a dead faith.
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So if we would look for mercy, we must be those who show mercy. If we would find compassion, we must be those who have compassion.
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If we would want the Lord to be long -suffering toward us, we must be those who are long -suffering toward others.
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If we would have the Lord cover our offenses in love, we must be those who cover offenses in love.
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This is all that Jesus points His disciples toward. J .C. Ryland puts it this way, we should never flatter ourselves and think we have the spirit of adoption if we cannot bear and forbear, but this is a heart -searching subject.
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When we consider the malice, the bitterness, the factionalism among Christians, it is fearfully great.
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No wonder that so many of our prayers seem to be thrown away and unheard. So J .C.
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Ryland considers when we look to the Lord in prayer, if we're harboring that kind of merciless lack of forgiveness in our hearts, we shouldn't expect that God is going to shine
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His favor upon us. Indeed, He may turn His face from us. We must pray as those who forgive.
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This means that our prayer lives can actually be hindered, frozen, effectively paralyzed if we knowingly bear a grudge, if we have some contention, a root of bitterness, a spot of jealousy, a revulsion, a straying, not just in the big actions, but in the secret thoughts and attitudes of our hearts.
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If we harbor that to the God who sees and knows all things, then we're essentially defiling our conscience and proving
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Him to be a liar. In some ways, our request that He forgive us is a challenge to God.
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It's almost an arrogant boast against Him. Even though I have not forgiven, forgive me.
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Later in Matthew's Gospel, he has a whole parable about that very thing, about the man who's forgiven an unpayable debt, and then he goes out without even a thought of what he's received from the king's hand.
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He goes and chases down the smaller debt of a servant. And so Jesus warns us very starkly in that parable as well as here, if we would seek
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God's forgiveness, we must be those who forgive. Forgiveness is in the very character of God.
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Forgiveness ought to be in the very character of God's people. I don't think there's anything more misaligned, anything more out of step to a
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Christian than a lack of forgiveness. That is essentially the beginning and end of the
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Christian life, is the forgiveness of God. That is the first breath of faith that we draw, that is a final breath of faith that we breathe.
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Our whole life is the forgiveness and mercy of God poured out to us on the cross, renewed every day by His infinite grace.
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Is there anything more sharply in contrast, anything more defiling of a
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Christian's testimony, than to lack forgiveness? That is the family trait of the people of God.
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We are people who forgive, people who forbear, people who cover. We're not people who bear grudges, not people with thin skin, not people who can be easily insulted, are not so full of pride that we tear into rages at the smallest slice.
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I forget the Puritan that said it, but he said, a proud man is proud of a feather. It's true, the smallest slice.
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You see it in a kid, they can pick up a dirty pile of leaves, and the other kid picks up my pile of leaves.
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Anything is something worth both thinking about. This is not how Christians conceive of themselves. In fact, when we look at the church, when we look at God's people, we see the wisdom of God's arrangement.
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Paul explains this in 1 Corinthians 12. There's a body that is put together in this way that there's a function that comes with and from the one another's.
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No two are alike, no two serve the same purpose, yet all together build up and edify the body, all form the very life and power of the body.
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That's the point of 1 Corinthians 12. Truly no one can say of the other, I have no need of you.
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No one can consider a brother and sister and think, good riddance. It means we haven't conceived rightly of the body.
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We haven't conceived rightly of God's wise design. God's orchard has no self -pollinating trees.
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The only way fruitfulness comes about is if there's cross -pollination, if our lives are actually born open, and if our lives are going to be born open with one another, there's going to be a need for forgiveness.
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When you bear open a life that's pockmarked with sin and a lack of sanctification, you're going to need forgiveness in the
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Church of God. Part of this gross involves bumps, bruises, insults, neglect, rivalry, disappointment, discouragement, offense.
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In a nutshell, everything that requires forgiveness, which is why Jesus is so emphatic about forgiveness.
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He has called together these twelve men, he's preaching to a whole crowd of disciples, and he says, as you follow me, you're going to need to have this at the very heart of your daily walk.
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You're going to have to let a lot of things go. You're gonna have to learn how to bear no grudges. You're going to have to forgive one another, because if you're following me, your flesh is going to reel against it.
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If you're following me, you're gonna be playing bumper cars with a lot of other people that are trying to follow me, and the way forward is the way of forgiveness.
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Martin Lloyd -Jones, who preached so many wonderful sermons from the Sermon on the Mount, he reminds us that here is the proof that we are forgiven, right?
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The conditional statements are concrete. If you don't forgive, God won't forgive.
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It's as simple as that. Jesus puts it in the crystalline algorithm.
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So it's the proof that we're forgiven when we forgive others. It's proof that we have received grace from God if we give grace to others.
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That's the whole argument. Listen to Lloyd -Jones. If we think that our sins are forgiven by God and then refuse to forgive someone else, we're mistaken.
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We've never been forgiven. A Christian doesn't make it decades through the end of their life with grudges and bitterness being bottled up like cancer in their body.
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And the last words they have to share on the very brink of eternity are the old haunts and old memories, old grudges and old things that they remember, and it all comes flooding back toward the end of life.
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You know, the problem with so -and -so. You know, you know what I never really understood about so -and -so.
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All of a sudden, rather than having their whole mind, their whole life flashing before the sense of God being their shepherd,
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His merciful providence, the anticipation of entering into His kingdom, it's everything but that. That shows that you've never received
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God's forgiveness. The closer you are to standing at the very bench of God, the more guilty you appear.
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The man, Lloyd -Jones says, the man who knows he has been forgiven only by the shed blood of Christ is a man who must forgive.
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It's a compulsion to forgive. Who am I to chase down debts? How could I harbor a grudge?
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He can't help it, Lloyd - Jones says. And if we really know Christ is our Savior, our hearts are broken by our sins, and if our heart is broken by sin, it cannot be hardened.
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Therefore, we cannot refuse forgiveness. So again, the point, if we're refusing to forgive anyone, it suggests that we've never been forgiven.
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Jesus says if we refuse to forgive anyone, we can be sure we will not be forgiven.
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When we're injured or mistreated, we should ask ourselves a question. When we're abused or neglected, when we're discouraged or offended, we should ask ourselves whether we would be like our long -suffering
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God who's called us, or whether it would be like the world around us that always doubles down to vindicate the name, the rights, to push back.
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The question essentially boils down to this, are we like Him who when He was reviled, reviled not?
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Because the one who was when He was reviled, reviling not, is the same one who says, if you don't forgive, my father won't forgive.
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The one who when He was insulted, when He was offended, when He was mistreated, never stood for Himself, never vindicated
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Himself, never pushed back or basically fought insult with insult, slight with slight, damage with damage.
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He was one that rather said, Father, forgive our debts as we forgive the debts of others.
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We consider whether we harbor and collect little annoyances of daily life, watchful over easy excuses, watchful over sharp words, quick judgments.
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This is part of how we live a life characterized by forgiveness. What do you cling to? What sticks to you?
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You know what it's like, the older I get now, randomly at night, I'll have a random memory or a random thought of something really embarrassing and cringeworthy that I did in middle school or high school.
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You just remember it out of the blue and you're like, oh man, I hope no one else remembers that.
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It's like, you wish you had one of those men in black flash pens that could erase everyone's memory. I'm like, ah,
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I hope my family forgets that I was like that or I did that, right? We all have those those little things that they seem to come out of nowhere.
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In a Christian's life, slights, offenses, grudges, those things can seemingly come out of nowhere.
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Do you cling to them? Do you feed them? Do you nurse them? Do you harbor them? Or do you turn them over and say,
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Father, as you've forgiven me, help me to forgive the offenses, the slights against me. Father, as quick as you are to forgive me, let me be as quick to forgive.
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Even this memory, this thought, this realization that's come to my attention, Lord, help me to forgive as I've been forgiven.
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The more that happens, you realize it's very hard. It's why Jesus emphasizes this. This is very hard to do.
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This cuts against our fallen nature. Our fallen nature makes it very easy to be selfish. In fact, that's the way of life.
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It's a dog -eat -dog world. No one's going to do you any favors. Forgiveness is weakness as far as the world is concerned.
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Forgiveness is actually denying yourself the very things that you should stand on, the very things that you deserve, the things that you should receive.
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Speaking of middle school, one of the things they used to do, I went to school in the days where you had the big TVs that weighed about 300 pounds, and it's this big box that looked like a cubic freezer, and they'd bring them in on a cart and would watch these little psychological self -help videos, and one of them,
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I remember, was about this green little monster that you had to be very careful of, and this green little monster was having a low self -esteem.
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Oh, that's the one thing you don't want. You don't want little Johnny or little Timmy to have low self -esteem.
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You see, the problem with that is the Christian life, the life of faith, the life of forgiveness, requires a low self -esteem, because a life of forgiveness is a life of humility.
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You have to think less of yourself. That's low self -esteem. I esteem others better than myself.
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That's a high esteem of others, which can only come about if I have a lesser esteem for myself.
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So in fact, the green monster was the green friend. It wasn't the thing to avoid, it was the thing to grow in, not to deny things that the
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Lord would not want us to deny, the worthiness of a reputation and a name.
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Proverbs says that's worth more than gold and silver, but rather the envious, prideful, arrogant clearing of ourselves, clearing of our name, the things that, again, will come into our thoughts, will, in the middle of the night, begin to spike and infect the way that we're viewing and thinking of others.
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Someone says, well, God doesn't want me to be a doormat. No, no, no, of course not. He doesn't want you to be a doormat.
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He just wants you to carry a cross and die to yourself. That's a lot lower than a doormat.
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So forgiveness is one of these things that we know it's the very substance of the Christian life. It's really easy to discuss.
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It's really hard to do. It's really easy to preach or hear a sermon like this if you're not actively struggling with forgiveness.
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It's almost impossible to hear it and receive it when you are. That's why Jesus again and again returns to this matter.
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He recognizes that in the lives of His disciples, who have been formed prior to His grace by the darkened ways of an unforgiving and vengeful world, that He'll constantly need to remind them of the kind of forgiveness that flows freely from the throne of God.
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This forgiveness that isn't trickled out or sprinkled from season to season, it's just effortlessly fully poured out.
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It's poured out freely and fully by the very character of God and His compassion never fails because He changes not.
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Every morning His mercy renews and Jesus says in this way, guard and protect your own mind. Show that you belong to Him in this way.
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Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. If we forgive men their trespasses, our Heavenly Father will forgive us, but if we don't,
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He won't. That's what Jesus says. Let me give a few points that will hopefully help us a little bit as we consider this whole matter.
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The first point is this, clearly if there's any truth in verse 14 and 15 it's this, our forgiveness is a condition of God's forgiveness.
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Our forgiveness is a condition of God's forgiveness. Some of you are familiar with the story of Corrie ten
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Boom, who was in the concentration camps in Nazi Germany, gave her life to Christ, lost her sister
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Betsy in the concentration camps. Wrote her famous book, The Hiding Place, and of course picked up some international renown and would go to various places for book signings and interviews and whatnot.
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And one of these places in Germany, this is many years after the war, a man approached her and as he approached she instantly recognized him.
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He had been one of the camp commandants at the camp where her sister was killed. And she recounts that she prayed, oh
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God, help me to forgive him. And then the instant counter thought to that was, I can't forgive him.
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And then the prayer within that was, help me God. And the counter thought was, I won't forgive him.
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And she said by the time he finally closed in within talking distance, her last words were just, help me.
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And he said, dear Sister Corrie, I don't know if you know this, but I was a camp commandant.
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I did unspeakable things. Please forgive me. And she said as if it was drawn out of her by the
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Lord Himself. Words that she couldn't even put in her mouth, but just drawn out of her by the Lord Himself. She said,
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I forgive you fully, brother. I forgive you fully, brother. Our forgiveness is a condition of God's forgiveness.
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It's something easy to read, something easy to read past, but we have to look at the weight of what
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Jesus is saying. Our forgiveness is conditional, but our forgiveness is a condition of God's forgiveness.
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Thomas Watson put it this way, our forgiving others is not a cause of God forgiving us, but it is a condition without which
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He will not forgive us. Our forgiving others doesn't cause God to forgive us, but He teaches in this way that unless we are forgiving others, we should have no expectation of His forgiveness, because those who receive
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His forgiveness are those who forgive. Our forgiveness is a condition of God's forgiveness.
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And so we carefully search out attitudes of anger, hostility, irritation. What cultivates this dark fruit of bitterness in our lives?
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These are the things that we say, forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And a lot of times part of our debt is that we haven't forgiven our debtors as we ought, so that becomes part of our own debt that we ask
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God to forgive. Our forgiveness is a condition of God's forgiveness. Second point, God desires us to display
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His forgiveness in our forgiveness. God desires us to His forgiveness in our forgiveness.
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Think about it in this way, God forbids the deadly lack of forgiveness in the sixth commandment.
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You remember back in Exodus when we looked at that, you shall not murder. One of the ways that the
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Catechism understands the implications of that commandment is, this means that in regard to our neighbor, we harbor no hatred, no envy, no desiring revenge, because as Jesus says in the
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Sermon on the Mount that the seed of murder is found in that hatred, found in that envy.
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It may lack opportunity, it may fear consequence, but it is the seed to which the fruit is murder.
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But not only does it break the commandment to have hatred, envy, to desire revenge, when a
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Christian refuses to forgive, they are essentially proclaiming to the world around them that the gospel is shallow, forgiveness is cheap, it doesn't cost all that much, it comes and goes, and in fact, the gospel is powerless to actually restore and reconcile.
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Essentially, you have an anti -gospel in someone who lives a lack of forgiveness. When a
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Christian lives a life without forgiveness, they're proclaiming to the world an anti -gospel. There is no reconciliation, there is no peace, there is no power to heal, there is no mercy to overcome, there is no love to bind and to become a bomb.
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That's how sensitive and cautious we are to be when we handle these matters of offense and slight and division.
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The testimony of the gospel itself is at stake when it comes to how we forgive and regard others.
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It's not about your ego, it's about the gospel, it's not about your reputation, it's about the kingdom, it's not about your hurt feelings, it's about the love of God poured out freely upon a people who did not deserve it.
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If you've been forgiven in that way, so you must also forgive. That's what Jesus is saying. We dare not make glorious claims about the gospel if we have no power, no evidence of its efficacy in our lives.
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If we continually reside in bitterness and resentment toward others, we're simply hypocrites.
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Well -polished indeed, well polished, well -versed, but hypocrites nonetheless.
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Our neighbors know it and our children will know it too. People in the pew might not realize it, but the children will.
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The children in the home will see it. They'll hear the grudge, they'll find in the hallways of their home the echoes of resentment, the rehearsing of slights and offenses, the pronouncements of vindication and self -justification.
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They'll hear that echoing around, and I'll tell you Satan loves to allow these kinds of things to fester in a congregation because he knows,
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I don't have to win the war with this current generation. I barely have to win a battle,
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I can just destroy the next generation. This is why
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Jesus emphasizes this, but by the same token there's an encouragement here, isn't there?
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If our lack of forgiveness destroys the testimony of the gospel, if our clinging to resentment and self -justification distorts and actually submerges the power of the gospel into just fleshly machinations, then by the same token on the other hand, when we forgive, when we walk in forgiveness, when we actually have a life characterized with mercy, then the testimony of the gospel is unleashed.
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Now our children realize there is something that I don't understand about this whole
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Christian thing. My parents are able to do that.
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I'm not able to do that. Why do they have peace and I don't have peace? Why aren't they upset?
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I'm upset. How can they show mercy? This is like the 20th time.
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All of a sudden there's a testimony of the gospel. The power of the gospel is displayed. It's at work.
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This is what God desires. He desires to display His forgiveness in our forgiveness.
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And so the power of the gospel, the work of the gospel, at work in these relationships, in this very way, this is gospel symmetry.
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Our forgiving love shown to others as the evidence that we have received God's forgiving love by His Spirit.
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The blood that cleanses our conscience from dead works is the blood that cleanses us from selfishness, self -reliance, self -justification.
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The love that we're loved with is a pardoning love. It's a love that causes us to pardon others. It takes possession of us.
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It flows out of us into the lives of others. This is what it means to display God's forgiveness in this symmetrical way.
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Ephesians 4 .32, be kind to one another, tender -hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
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It's the display of God's forgiveness in a microcosm played out in the various small ways we forgive others.
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We can forgive another for Christ's sake above all else. We can forgive another for Christ's sake not based on what they return to us, not based on how sincere or meaningful their repentance seems to be, not whether they finally learn their lesson and no longer will they sin against us 70 times 7.
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We can forgive 70 times 7. We can forgive that daily simply because of who Christ is.
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We do it for His sake. That's what Corrie ten Boom was realizing. You help me,
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Lord. You love me like this. This is hard for me, so help me. God has brought us together in a body to grow in these very things.
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His desire is for the church to be a display case of forgiveness. I'm convinced that that is where a lot of the rubber meets the road as far as Christian testimony and impact.
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Some people, they'll come to a church and they'll be attracted with the external trappings of blessedness.
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Oh, it seems like if I plug in here I could have maybe a more stable and fruitful marriage.
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Oh, it seems like this would be really good socialization and maturity and learn maybe just etiquette even for my kids.
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Oh, this seems like it's a really loving and sweet community and they really share with each other's concerns and it's really easy to come in at that level, but any group, any community can move in some of those directions.
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It's when there's real offense, it's when there's real sin, it's when there's real division overcome by forgiveness that the power of the gospel is put on display.
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So our forgiveness is God's desire to be His display. This is the work that I do, this is what the gospel does, it reconciles.
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Wherever you employ the gospel, reconciliation will be the result. Now reconciliation is a two -way street, it's insofar as it depends on us, but we have a heart of reconciliation, we have a heart of pardon, we have a heart of mercy.
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If that's what we've received from God, that's what we display. And it leads thirdly to this point, our forgiveness reenacts what we've received.
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If our forgiveness is the condition of just God forgiving us and that forgiveness is then put on display, then in a sense all we're ever doing is reenacting
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God's forgiveness in the lives and relationships we have with others. Our forgiveness reenacts what we've received.
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I trust you've seen reenactors, some of you were out at Lexington and Concord a few weeks ago, and I used to work at the plastic factory, one of my managers was a
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Civil War reenactor, I don't know why he joined a Confederate unit, but we laughed about that quite often, and he had a little
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CSA canteen he would take to the break room all the time, catch the ire of some of his co -workers that was wondering why
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Johnny Reb was showing up for the lunch break. But you see the reenactors, they dive in to what they love, they dive into the history, they like to personalize it, they like to go down to the dog tag and actually create this sort of backstory, they dress the part, they walk the walk, they talk the talk, they're they're reenacting.
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It's as if you could go back in time and this is what it would have looked like and this is how it would have sounded and this is what their life was like and they're very excited to tell you all about it, how to make, you know, grits or, you know,
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Johnny cakes or whatnot. In a sense, that's what Christians do. In some small way that never can bear upon the full reality, we we dive into and seek to reenact toward others what
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God has done for us. It's never the whole show, it's never the full picture, it's almost pathetic in comparison, but we can't help it.
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We want to reenact what we've received in so far as we're able, we're seeking to be reconciled in the way we've been reconciled, we're seeking to show mercy in the way we received mercy, we're seeking to love and and do good works in the same way that God has loved us and did the greatest work for our souls.
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This is what Jesus said in Matthew 5, a chapter before, I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
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Why? So that you can be like sons of your Father in heaven. It's a family trait.
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Reenact it, Jesus says. He loved you while you were an enemy. Reenact that to your enemies.
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He sought your good when all you were giving was offense. Reenact that,
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Jesus says, to those in your life. Show that you belong to Him. Be His Son in that way.
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Forgiveness is in the very character of God. Isn't that the whole point of Luke 15? When I was out in California after the wedding,
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I met a couple of the young men from Christina's church there in California, Doxa, and I asked one of them, what are you learning on Sundays?
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What are you working through? He says, oh, I've been working through Luke's gospel. Where are you? Luke 15.
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And he said it just like that, Luke 15. It's like, I know exactly what you mean. It's the story of the prodigal son.
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It's perhaps the most stunning portrait of the character of God in all of the Gospels.
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The father who runs to embrace a son who wished him for dead, who wasted and spurned and despised his inheritance, who came back thinking he could barter to be a slave and received nothing but free and full, unconditional forgiveness.
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Lavish forgiveness, a joyous embrace. He was bewildered. And what was the impact of that when this rebellious son, this treacherous son, who orphaned himself from the love of his father, came back thinking he would have, if anything, a rageful face, maybe at least a reluctant face, and hoped, if I could just hide out in the basement and have crusts of bread, you'll never have to see me again.
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The last thing on earth he was expecting is to see tear -strained joy coming down on his wrinkled father's face as he's receiving the best robe and the fatted calf, and he got the sense with that embrace something was spoken that couldn't have been spoken by words.
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With that embrace, he's saying, everything is forgiven. All your rebellious wandering, all your neglect, your thanklessness, your spite, your threat to my own life and livelihood, a son running off, now
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I have no one to care for me and in my need and my old age. And in that embrace, it was just a sense, it's all forgiven.
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Everything's forgiven. You're just embraced. Reenact that.
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That's what God desires. Reenact that. What relationships do you have in your life that perhaps the recipient would expect a cold, stern disavowal, a negotiated distance?
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Jesus says, here's how you should be toward that relationship. Arms open. As far as it concerns me, it's all forgiven.
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It's all forgiven. I reenact what I've received. I've been forgiven in this way. How could I not show mercy?
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In the face of that kind of forgiveness, reconciliation is wrought. And that kind of forgiveness, rather than a negotiated hiddenness, now the
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Son lives openly. Now reconciliation bears its full fruit. Now it brings peace and joy.
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Can you imagine how zealous this long -lost son would be to show his thankfulness, to bring honor to his father?
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How zealous he would be that no one dare belittle his father's good name? How quick he would be to testify to anyone and everyone, you've got to meet my father.
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I wish he could know what he's like. I wish I had ten more lifetimes to show him what he means to me.
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This is all the result of gospel forgiveness being displayed. An infinitely transcendent
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God of holiness poured out His loving grace on us when we went headlong to our own destruction, into the far country, willingly refusing
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Him, throwing off His claims upon us in our foolishness, in our own spiritual suicide.
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We sought Him to be out of our lives forever, and yet in His forgiveness
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He came, He sought us, He rescued us, He embraced us and brought us near, He loved us while we were enemies,
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He gave Himself for us. What kind of life, what kind of faith harbors and presents and displays and reenacts that?
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Thinking of your life, thinking of your relationships, thinking of wounds and offenses, discouragements and neglect, thinking of real sin that was wrought against you, what does it look like to forgive as you've been forgiven?
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Paul's heart in this way overflowed with this humble gratitude. I don't think
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Paul ever forgot what it was like to be embraced by the ancient Christians after the road to Damascus, when they were so terrified at the prospect of this persecutor and enemy, this despiser of the church to come into their midst, and essentially they're trying to correct the
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Lord. You know, Paul's coming to stay with you, no, no he's not Lord, we know who Paul is and he's definitely not staying with us, like Lord you got this one wrong, no
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I didn't, you early Christians have a hard time listening, I had to tell Peter twice, don't call vulgar what
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I've made clean. He says no, Paul's coming to stay with you. I've been in situations where it's pretty awkward to walk through the front door, that's got to be at the top of most awkward, you know, the ring camera, ding, oh it's
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Paul, great. Hey, and Paul's like hey, I could just point me to the room and you know, how long did it take to kind of learn just how to dwell together?
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And I just imagine it, Paul having very little to say, explaining what happened to him, barely being able to understand it, took some years in Arabia to really work out the revelation of Christ.
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I can imagine him just keeping his peace, I of all people have nothing to say, and I picture him among these early
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Christians in prayer and worship just often being reduced to weeping, and half of that was the realization that he had persecuted the very hope of his life, the
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Messiah, because on that road to Damascus Jesus said why do you persecute me? But I think the other half of his weeping was just looking at the forgiveness, the reconciliation, the love of the other
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Christians in that room, and that stayed with Paul for the rest of his ministry. It didn't really matter what the
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Galatians did to him, what the Corinthians did to him, call in super apostles, betray him, we don't know if we're gonna follow you anymore, it's like they could kick him and spit on him and revile him and he'd still write a letter and say holy and beloved,
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I love you like a mother loves her children. You know, you've had many counselors, you haven't had many fathers, he just he never lost that sense of what forgiveness had meant.
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He was able to show it because he had received it so profoundly, and notice it wasn't just that he'd received it from God, it was that he had received it from others that transformed his life into what it was.
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So his heart was overflowing with this lasting, humble gratitude. Gratitude is the best fruit of forgiveness.
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When someone knows you didn't have to treat me in this way, but you did anyway. You didn't have to go that extra mile, but you did.
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You didn't have to give me also your cloak, but you did. When you recognize that that gratitude is actually at the very heart of the gospel.
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I've said from this pulpit in times past, the whole Christian life and all of redemptive history essentially reduces down to thank you.
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It's just gratitude. That eternity is gratitude. The fall was a lack of gratitude that led to temptation and sin, and redemption is essentially gratitude without end.
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Worshipping and celebrating what God has done because we were helpless and dead in our sin and trespasses.
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Thank you, Lord. And what does that gratitude chiefly come from?
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Where does that chief root grow? Forgiveness. Forgiveness. That's what
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God would have us reenact. That's what God would have us put on display. That is the condition of God's forgiveness for us.
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It was a constant memory for Paul. You've heard of my former conduct, he tells the
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Galatians. I persecuted the church beyond measure. I tried to destroy it. He didn't clean up his name and reputation.
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He almost wore it as a badge of honor. This is how bad I was. This is how good
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God is. It's a good thing for us to reflect on where we've been.
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It's a good thing for us to not cling to offenses and slights. Those things ought to slip through our fingers like olive oil.
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What we should cling to is the memory of our debts, the memory of how we've sinned against God and many others, and yet how we've been freely and fully forgiven by God and by many others.
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Rather than doing this to hang our heads in shame, we do this so that our hearts will be humble and tender, so that we're able to forgive as we've been forgiven.
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And once we've truly grasped something of Christ's grace to us, we then display it and reenact it toward others.
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A church that is characterized by this is a powerful witness. That's a lampstand that will shine into the farthest reaches of our surroundings, even in a dark state like Massachusetts.
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But that lampstand will never shine if we don't forgive. If we don't forgive, we won't be forgiven.
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There's reason enough, but to work it into our hearts and to realize why we ought to forgive, why we should want to forgive.
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That's the point, is when you've really reflected on your life, your sins, what
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God saved you from, how He's been patient, long -suffering, full of everlasting compassion to you, mercy that renews morning by morning.
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It's not just to amount to biting down on leather and with gritted teeth trying to forgive someone you don't really want to forgive.
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The more you reflect on these things, it's a compulsion. It may be hard, and in some seasons it will be harder than others, and in some relations it will seem almost impossible.
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But as you reflect less on yourself, your slights, debts against you, and more on the fact that you were this debtor saved by grace, you've received a mercy that is so rich for a debt you could never repay, then it's not so much a task, it's a desire.
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It's not so much a duty with gritted teeth, it's a compulsion from love. This is what
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Jesus would have. Listen, we have a big if statement. If you forgive men their trespasses, your
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Father will forgive you. 1st John takes that language up in the same way. Listen for the if statement.
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This is a love of God, John writes. God sent His Son into the world so that we would live through Him.
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In this is love. Not that we loved God, He loved us. Sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins, beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.
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That's John's version of Matthew 6, 14, and 15. It's not if you forgive,
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God will forgive, it's if you've been loved, you will love. If you've been loved in this way, you will love.
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The love of God was made manifest. Is our love from God made manifest? That's the question.
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Thomas Watson said, Christians, how many offenses has God passed by in us?
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He forgives things we don't even ask forgiveness for. You consider that.
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We don't let things slide that easily, do we? Someone slights you a few times in a day, maybe a couple sharp responses between spouses, at some point it's like, okay, what's going on?
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What's going on today? Are you upset with me or something? We don't let things slide.
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Think of the innumerable sins that God covers in forgiveness that we've never even expressed an iota of remorse about.
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Our sins are innumerable, and because God is a holy God, he doesn't see as we do, veiled by flesh, where we flatter our sins.
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God sees sin for what it really is, a hell -deserving offense. He sees sin from holy eyes, we see sin from fallen, worldly eyes, and yet he still forgives us more fully, more freely, more willingly, more comprehensively, and more consistently than we ever do.
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So Watson says this, is God willing to forgive us so many offenses and we cannot forgive a few?
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No man could ever do us so much wrong in our whole life than we do to God in but a single day.
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No one could do you wrong your whole life in comparison to how we slight or fail to live up to God's desire, fall short of his glory every single day, and yet every single day his mercy renews.
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That's why Jesus says if you want to be a son of your Father in heaven, forgive, forgive, walk in forgiveness.
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God forgives sincerely, which means we don't have a feigned forgiveness, oh yeah, don't worry about it, and then we kind of give a leer as we walk away, no it's fine, and then you kind of scowl as you walk up.
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It's not a feigned forgiveness, it's sincere. When you say, oh no, don't worry about that, it means
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I'm not worrying about that, I'm not harboring it, it's gone. When you say, thank you for saying that,
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I forgive you, it means thank you for saying that, I forgive you. I'm not going off to storm about it or vent about it with others, it really is forgiven sincerely.
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God forgives fully, that means our forgiveness is full. There's not strings attached, there's not hoops to jump through,
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God forgives often. That means our forgiveness is consistent, repeated, 70 times 7 kind of forgiveness.
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Now this doesn't mean that some sins don't have consequences, all sin has consequences. Some of those consequences need to come, there is no other way.
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It simply means that we do not put conditions upon our forgiveness. The offense may have consequences, but the forgiveness cannot be conditioned on hoops that we create, or hurdles that we construct, or some obstacle course to receive absolution, not if we belong to God.
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So one thing we need to do is, contra my middle school big -box TV advice, is to actually walk in humility, walk with a lower self -esteem.
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Think of yourself less, or at least think less of yourself, like one of the two.
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Don't make such a big deal about your name, your reputation, slights against you. If you struggle with that and you're quick to remember these things, get more accurate memories about yourself.
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What were you like? What have you done? Where were you before God saved you?
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Paul's about to lambast the Galatians, and just as a little heart check before he does that, he says,
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I just want to tell you I once despised the Church of God, like this is who I was, like let me humble myself before I exhort and humble you.
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That's a good tactic. Never lose sight of who you are. What reputation do you have?
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What do you have that you did not receive, is Paul's question. You have nothing to stand on but what
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God has given, nothing to claim or defend but what God has granted. Therefore, think less of yourself, or think of yourself less.
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Have humbling memories. Think of how often you're motivated by pride, by anger, by envy, how often you want to rejoice with those who rejoice and grieve with those who grieve, but often those wires get crossed and you find yourselves a little happy when certain people are struggling and a little sad in other directions when other people are gaining or being blessed.
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Growing in humility. Growing in humility. This is all we're talking about. The path of sanctification is a path that goes through a valley.
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It's a path that only the humble can find. Forgiveness flows out of the life of a humble
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Christian. Nothing sticks. When we were kids, we used to have little limericks like sticks and stones may break my bones but words would never hurt me and would say that to each other as we're crying.
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Words will never hurt me, mom! And we're like running. It doesn't stick.
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It doesn't bind. It doesn't hurt. Why? Because you're already in the valley.
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It's like, there's a lot more you could say about me. Your insults are like barely hitting the surface.
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I'm already aware I was a lot worse about me than you are aware of, so how could your insults hurt me?
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I don't have a projected or puffed -up sense of who I am. I've been humbled by the grace that I've received.
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My whole life has been characterized by that grace. I'm growing from grace to grace because I'm growing from level of humility to level of humility to level of humility.
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And a life that grows in this direction is going to be a life full of forgiveness. As one said, he who is low in his own eyes will not be much trouble though others lay him low.
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So think less of yourself or of yourself less. And remember, as we come to a close now, the initial three points.
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Our forgiveness is a condition of God's forgiveness. Remember what Jesus says. He puts it in terms of a warning.
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If you fail to see the positive, compelling motivations, at least look to the negative warnings.
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If you don't live a life marked by forgiveness, you should have no expectation that you'll be forgiven. You should have a very serious and anxiety -ridden sense of God's judgment upon you.
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The king that was so easily forgiving in the parable, what's this lifetime of debt that you can't repay?
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It's all absolved. I wash it away, go in peace. It's not the same reaction that he gets when the servants say, he just went outside and began strangling a guy over bubble gum and nickels.
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The king doesn't go, well I'm just so forgiving, I mean even that must be forgiving. He says, torture him until he repays every cent of the debt that I had forgiven.
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It's fearful to fall into the hands of the living God. Jesus says in no uncertain terms, if you won't be positively compelled to forgive, at least look at the warning.
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You will atone for everything. You will atone for every careless word you will be judged.
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And sin against an infinite God is an infinite debt. It can never be absolved.
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It requires an infinitude of punishment. This is what Jesus is saying. And yet if you've received
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God's forgiveness and that is so embraced and cherished by you that it flows into a display of His forgiveness, and then you seek in every relationship, at every turn an opportunity to reenact that grace that you've received, then
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Jesus says you can be assured with the assurance of His own Spirit, everything is forgiven. You are the prodigal that's embraced by the loving
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Father, and that embrace tells you everything you need to know. Everything is forgiven. Now come in and feast.
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Luke 15 leaves off with the older brother, doesn't it, who's on the outside. He's not sure if he's able to forgive the younger brother.
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We always want to assume we're the younger brother in the story, and at some level, in some way, that's certainly true.
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But another way to think about it is we are very much the older brother on the outskirts. We're not really sure if we're able to forgive.
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In fact, there's something a little disturbing about how God forgives. When we see the Father pour out that kind of rich compassion, it makes me feel like, well,
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I've been working so hard to try to be worthy. I feel like you're blessing and forgiving and embracing them so powerfully and quickly, and what's in it for me?
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It's really easy in the Christian life to get to that place. The question is, do we actually recognize the
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Father's mercy and seek to reenact it so that we too can enter the feast? Jesus reveals to us there a heavenly
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Father who's rich in mercy and tells us only the merciful will obtain mercy. We saw that with the Beatitudes.
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Blessed are the merciful. They, we would say, they alone will receive mercy. Jesus says that those who inherit the earth, those who receive the promises of God, are the meek, the humble.
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So we pray for forgiveness as the forgiven, as those who forgive, knowing that if we don't forgive, we will not be forgiven, knowing that as we forgive, we'll be growing from grace to grace, from level of humility to level of humility, reenacting out of meekness and mercy the very things that we've received from God's own hand, amen?
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May the Lord help us to forgive our debtors, even as He has forgiven our debts.
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Let's pray. Father, thank
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You for Your Word. Lord, do help us. It's no easy thing,
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Lord, to walk as You walked. In fact, it's so impossibly hard that we cannot do it apart from Your Spirit, Your presence in our lives,
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Your power. I pray, Lord, that You would empower us as Your people and empower this church by Your presence to be those who walk humbly, having a love for others that we've received from You, walking in a life characterized by grace and a fence covering love, to be quick to let go, quick to move on, quick to forgive,
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Lord. Not to retain, not to swallow and harbor, not to allow things to fester, but Lord, as we come to You with clean consciences, seeing ourselves first and foremost, seeing our sins, our debt to You, that as a result of knowing
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Your love and Your forgiveness, Lord, we would be compelled, we would be delighted to be able to forgive others.
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Lord, do this work. We would pray that this church would become a mighty lampstand, spreading this light, this testimony of the gospel into the farthest reaches and corners of this place.
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Do this, Lord, for the sake of Your name, for the sake of Your glory, for the sake of Your kingdom.
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May none who have heard this word, including myself, Lord, find themselves on that last day to have been disillusioned, to hear that our sins have not been forgiven because we walked in lives that were characterized by envy and anger and bitterness.
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Lord, forgive us and help us to forgive. These things we ask in Jesus' name, amen.