Willful Forgiveness (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2 verse 5 where the

Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Michael E.

Abendroth here at the helm. I still sound a little stuffy, so if this is the first time you've heard the show,

I normally don't talk like I'm underwater. Now it's a Z -Pack and some inhaler that I'm on.

So I should probably take a deep puff of the Albuterol Laced Inhaler and some

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Pete's Coffee. Just kidding. Israel, 2015, February 17th.

I think it's through October 15th. You can send in your reservation money to reserve the trip.

Don't be afraid of going to die in Israel. Friends, you have to take trips to Israel believing in the sovereignty of God.

There's usually trouble over there, usually minor trouble, but we don't try to go by the trouble because Israel has a vested interest in keeping tourists safe and we love to spend time at the

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Twitter, NoCoRadio. I've been trying to ramp that up a little bit. So if you want to know what's happening in the

NoCo world, you can go there. I've been studying the book of Matthew this summer and I've been impressed.

The gospel of Jesus Christ according to Matthew and I like to be impressed.

Don't you? I mean, just think about life in general. Oh, that's impressive. And you have a kid that gets a good score, a good grade.

That's impressive. You watch someone. What else would I think it would be impressive?

You watch someone pole vault. That's impressive. If you ever type in pole vault fails, ouch, man, that would hurt.

Pole vaulting is impressive. There are a lot of things that are impressive.

It'd be impressive to go to the wedge in Newport Beach on a big day and watch people surf.

And then you think, no, that's not impressive because they're going to get smashed down onto the ground.

And so as I study Jesus, he is really the real impressive one.

We are made boasters. We are boastmaters. And we are made to worship

God and to think that he's impressive and to have awe and to have wonder and to have just an understanding of the weight of his glory so that you just say, to God be the glory, right?

To God be the glory. That's what we are made to say, that we don't want to boast in ourselves.

Well, we know we shouldn't. I mean, but we do. We're not to boast in ourselves. We're not to boast in our wisdom and our intellect.

We're not to boast in our power and our money. We're not to boast in even our family, our children.

We're to boast in the Lord that we know him, Jeremiah 9. So I've been doing a few cameos at the church,

Bethlehem Bible Church, bbcchurch .org. And the cameos have been centered around not five pragmatic how -tos, how to get through a long work week, relationships, money.

This summer, I heard Chip Ingram on the radio, and you can peg that ministry down to about five different sermons, money, relationships, communication, and a couple others.

That's just the ongoing discussion. And so I like it when we get away from imperatives all the time and how -tos and self -focused things to just be impressed with Jesus.

No one acted like he did. No one talked like he did. No one preached like he did.

No one did what he did. He was simply unique, amazing, incredible.

And I want to be caught up in the person and the work of Christ so that I might be changed to the person that I'm focusing upon.

You know, when you begin to observe someone and study them, you reflect them.

You take on parts of their personality because you're just so engrossed, so absorbed, so enthralled.

And certainly we would look at 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18, and see that very process of sanctification.

Once God saves you, you begin to more and more reflect the person of Christ Jesus.

And so how can you reflect him unless you're studying the Word? And so I've been studying the book of Matthew and just been impressed by Jesus.

And so I'll talk a little bit more about the transfiguration, being impressed by the glory, the

Shekinah glory, the effulgent glory of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.

But today I want to talk about more how impressed I am with Jesus and what he would say and how he would say it.

I mean, really, the delivery, the parables, the style of teaching.

It's incredible. I don't teach preaching for a living. I do it as an adjunct professor for Southern Seminary.

And so I receive a recompense. I receive a wage, but that's not my main wage.

My main wage is the gazillions I make here at No Compromise Radio. I just want you to know, if you send in money to No Compromise Radio, I don't get one dime of that.

That part's true. We do sometimes get people who send in money. I like when they say, we're trying to send you money, but we just don't know where to send it.

So that's good. I always tell the guys, and of course this is anti what we really are after, but I said, design me a website that wherever you move the mouse, it just goes to the donate button.

Problem is, I don't think we have a donate button. We might now. I think we had one. We took it off. It might be back up there.

I'm not exactly sure. I don't care if you donate to ministries. That's good. Make sure you give to your local church.

First and foremost, it's to the Lord through the local church. I want to be correct. I want to be biblical.

And then, if you have extra, you can support ministries that you think need supporting. Okay? It's as simple as that.

But it's that time of year again. Funds are low. We're going to have to close shop. I hate that.

So back to the topic, being impressed with Jesus. How he talked. I love to study preaching.

I want to be a better preacher. And so as I study Jesus, I just think how incredible he taught incredibly well.

It is amazing to me to just look through and to just settle in and to be not so rushed.

You know, you hear people talk about Bible interpretation. What are the keys of Bible interpretation? And they'll say context, context, context.

You know, location, location, location. I agree. But I think there's something even more important than that.

A, read your Bibles. That's a problem these days. And B, read your

Bibles slowly. Now, I don't mean slowly for slow sake.

What I mean is slowly so you can understand what's going on. And so you pick up the

Bible. Lord, help me understand what you've said in your text. Help me understand the riches and the treasures found buried in your word.

And then you begin to look at all kinds of things like context. You think of history. You think of culture.

You think of East. You think of West. You think of languages in Aramaic and Greek and Hebrew. But you just read slowly.

And I think if you read slowly, that is with a desire to understand, with interpretation, you're going to be blown away because you're going to catch things.

So if I look out my window here at the Deluxe Posh Studios on Buena Vista Street in Burbank, California, and I look out at these trees here in New England, I just give them a passing look or I look at the sky and it's just a passing look.

But when I study, when I gaze, when I am focused,

I see more because I'm not rushed. See, partly we're living in a rush culture.

Everything is rush, rush, rush. And so I have to admit I'm caught up in the rush.

But there are times that I'm not. For instance, when I fly, I like to just get there early.

I don't want to be sweaty. I have a desire, kind of on the ranking scale of desires when

I travel. That is, I'd like to get there safely. I would not like to crash.

But I'd like to make it a productive trip. I'd like to get some reading done or rest or something. But I don't want any sweat.

I don't want to sweat running, schlepping between gate to gate.

Now, many times I've flown with my wife and four kids. We take up, at least in domestic flights, whole rows.

They don't ask for your seat. They look at us as a family, like we're the Duggars or Doogars.

And then they say, oh, that's your row over there. A, B, C, D, E, F. And so I just don't want to have to sweat.

And so I like to get there early. That's a time where I can just relax. And so I can clear up emails and do other things just seated there.

So let's look at today, Matthew chapter 18. As we begin to be impressed with Jesus and what he said.

Now, we're not going to look at the section on church discipline. It's the section after that about forgiveness.

And so after my 10 minute intro this morning, this afternoon, this evening, depending on when you're listening,

I want you to remember that if you are a Christian, Jesus is going to demand,

Jesus is going to insist that you forgive other people.

Now, this is very, very difficult. Everyone here has been hurt.

Everyone here listening has been sinned against. If you're at a church for a long time, you've been hurt.

You've been let down. I've been hurt. I've been let down. People leave the church because they've been hurt.

And they've been left, let down, left down at that too, right? You have a spouse, maybe you have children, you have friends, you have parents, you have people you work with, and you are going to need to be a forgiving person.

It is a very, very relevant discussion. We sin against other people, so forgiveness is important, and they sin against us, and so forgiveness is important.

We've sinned and sinned against God, and certainly he hasn't sinned against us, but forgiveness is important.

One man said, refusing to forgive is a horrible sin. And why is it so horrible?

Well, it's horrible because we are commanded to forgive. It's horrible because it's selfish.

It's horrible because it's self -righteous. It's horrible for lots of reasons, but it's mainly horrible because it's unlike God.

So if I say something's righteous, the antonym is my kids would go, unrighteous, not righteous.

That's true. So if something's like God, then that would be godly.

And if something's not like God, that would be what? Ungodly, right?

So it's unlike God. It's ungodly. When I was growing up in the 70s, it was a man who had a deep voice, and he sold 7 -Up, and it was the

Un -Cola. The Un -Cola. You can type in Google 7 -Up

Un -Cola commercial if you'd like. The Un -Cola. How Sprite passed 7 -Up,

I have no idea, but they did. Probably owned by Coke or something like that. Who knows? And so godly, ungodly.

And when I present to you the God of Scripture, you're going to say much about him.

And eventually, hopefully the sooner the better, you're going to say he's a forgiving God. He has mercy.

He has grace. I mean, the thing that you love in God, grace and mercy and forgiveness, compassion, kindness, gentleness, abounding in loving kindness.

Those are godly because they are like God. But forgiveness, lack of, is ungodly.

That's why it is so wicked. James Coulter said the unforgiving spirit is the number one killer of spiritual life.

And so today on No Compromise Radio, I know this is an uber long intro, but that's okay. It's my show. But it's important.

Who in your life won't you forgive? Now, I worded that very particularly.

I didn't say, can't you forgive? You won't. You won't forgive. Who is it?

Now, when we think of forgiveness, before I get into Matthew 18, forgiveness says, basically,

I'm going to act like this never happened. So if someone sins against you and they ask for forgiveness and you say yes and you grant it, now you have to act like it's never happened.

What they did against you never ever happened. It's gone as far as the east is from the west, right?

Cast our iniquities behind his back, right? Cast him in the depth of the sea, remembers them no more.

There are a lot of different ways that the scriptures teach godly, the way

God himself forgives. I think about the one, the best one, remembers them no more.

He remembers our sins no more. Not that he forgets, he's omniscient, but he doesn't actively bring them up anymore.

He remembers them no more. And of course, we realize it's because Jesus has paid for those sins.

No double jeopardy, no breach of justice. God's holy and righteous and just laws have been upheld and God's mercy and grace is bestowed.

And that's all taking place at Calvary. So today I want to talk about forgiveness. Can you think of a good reason not to forgive your spouse?

Let me put it this way. Is there any sin so great, so grave that's been committed against you that you can't forgive it?

Is there anything so horrible that it's unforgivable?

Now, you might be jumping straight ahead to say, well, what about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? That says in this very book, the gospel of Jesus, according to Matthew, that it is unforgivable.

Yes, but that's different. We're not talking about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit here. We're talking about sins against you.

Is there a sin that you can't forgive? The wrong question. Is there a sin you won't forgive?

That's the question. Is there a sin you won't forgive? And so we go to the passage today,

Matthew chapter 18. Of course, this is just an intro, and we're going to have to get into this a little bit next time. We see

Peter coming up to Jesus and saying, Matthew 18, 21,

Lord, how often will my brother sin against me? And I forgive him as many as seven times.

So we see the context when Peter came up to him. The context is stemming right from Matthew 18 when it talks about the brothers sinning against you in verse 15 and taking someone else and taking to the church and establishing witnesses and what we would call church discipline found in Matthew 18, 15 to 20, two or three gathered in my name that I am among them regarding church discipline.

And so in light of that, because of that, Peter asked the question to Jesus, how often will my brother sin against me?

And I forgive him as many as seven times. Peter, he understands forgiveness is important.

Forgiveness is right up there. Forgiveness is godly.

And he being a Jew knows about forgiveness. If you think about the

Jewish rule based on Amos chapter one, verse six, and God forgiving three times was the amount that you needed to forgive.

And so according to rabbinic tradition, loosely based on scripture, we are going to forgive three times.

And so Peter maybe doubles and adds one, you know, it's, it's two

X plus one for Peter and X being the rabbinic three times, forgive them three times.

I mean, we, we have big hearts. The rabbis, they forgive three times. We forgive right up to seven, right?

Right. We, that's what we do. And I would imagine Peter's going to think that Jesus is going to say way to go, way to be big hearted, way to, way to, way to be tender hearted.

Hey, God in Amos one, he forgives Israel's enemies three times. We forgive as rabbis taught us three.

But what now do we do? We forgive seven times, right? Yom 86b rabbinic tradition.

If a man commits a transgression, the first, second, and third time, he is forgiven. The fourth, he is not forgiven.

So we will up to seven times bury a transgression against us and act like it never happened.

But there's a limit, right? Jesus, we, we, we have to cap this somehow.

I mean, this is like grace. This is dangerous. And grace is so dangerous that if you understand sovereign free grace, as Lloyd -Jones would talk about in Romans chapter six, you just might say to yourself that I can just sin all

I want. May I sin that grace abound? This is dangerous. We, we, we can't give this kind of rule to people because they'll just be little hellions.

They'll be licentious. They're going to go over the top. You mean grace covers all sins, past, present, and future.

And this is dangerous too. There's going to be a, there's got to be a cap. There's a cap level.

You know, you buy oil before the winter starts and you've got cap levels and, and you buy things.

Jesus responds to Peter and Peter hears this from Jesus in Matthew 18.

I do not say to you seven times, but 70, the SV says 77 times 70 dash seven times 70 times seven 490.

So instead of seven, we've got 490, 70 times seven, three times like the rabbis, seven times like Peter.

How about 490? And so Peter is going to be told the language of forgiveness really doesn't include math.

Now, Jesus gives a math answer, but that answer is to show that there is no limit for forgiveness.

You don't say to yourself, okay, five, six, seven, I'm done. Nor do you say 488, 489, 490.

I'm done. Forgiveness as Vincent said is qualitative, not quantitative.

So Jesus is going to teach a parable about how unlimited

God's forgiveness is through Christ Jesus. Therefore God's children,

God's adopted children based on the blood of Christ. They must also be forgivers as well.

70 times seven. It has been said law keeps count.

Grace does not. There's no counting in forgiveness because all our sins that were, that we committed were counted against Jesus.

And we're not going to count anymore. We're not going to think the way the scribes thought the rabbis thought the

Pharisees thought we're not counting anymore. No more counting. No more counting the sins that people sin against you.

Remember Lamech back in Genesis chapter four. If Cain is avenged seven fold, then

Lamech 70 seven bold. That's the exact kind of language that's used here.

We have the raw man, the primitive man, the Genesis four man, and revenge is unlimited.

And now you have the Christian man. Now you have the godly man. Now you have the godly woman.

And instead of unlimited revenge, you have unlimited forgiveness. I think

Genesis four was contemplated by Jesus when he was talking about this. People call that Genesis four language, the law of the jungle.

There's no more law of the jungle. It's grace. And if you've received grace, ought you not give grace?

If you have received forgiveness, ought you not to forgive? And Jesus tells a story to enforce that.

Now this whole time I've been talking, it's just been the introduction, but I think you're getting the point.

Forgiveness is key. Don't you want to be forgiven? You know, I remember certain people say what

I had. I can't remember her name, a famous person. What I envy so much about Christians is they have someone to forgive them.

If you've been in a fight with your brother, sister, wife, husband, friend, church member, church associate, and then you ask for forgiveness, you receive forgiveness.

They ask, you grant. What kind of feeling do you have? I mean, subjective feeling. It is wonderful, isn't it?

To feel forgiven. How much greater it is to know all the things that you've done against God's law and what you didn't do that he required of you.

And how we've broken the two greatest commandments in all the world, loving God with all our heart and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

And therefore it must be the two worst sins ever not to do those. And God's forgiven us.

Jesus loved his father with all his heart, soul, mind, strength. And Jesus loved his neighbors himself. And we get credit for those.

Jesus got credit for our sins and God raised him from the dead. We are forgiven. Faith and repentance have been exercised and we're forgiven.

And if you're forgiven, don't you love that? And don't you want to do what God does? That is be a forgiving person.

So my name is Mike Abendroth. It's No Compromise Radio. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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