Sermon
Forgive To Be Forgiven
June 26-27, 1999
Pastor Donald Sheley

It's nice to see you this beautiful day of worship, and I'd like for you to take your Bibles and join with me in the passage that we have been working through now for a number of weeks; the Sermon on the Mount, and it's found in Matthew's Gospel chapters 5, 6, and 7. We're in chapter 6, and the subject today is the subject of prayer. And we have come to that portion where Jesus is instructing His disciples how they should pray. We're at verse 9 chapter 6. "In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. "But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Now we over the period of weeks have taken this prayer and talked almost about each word and each phrase, and the phrase that we have come to today to think about is this, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Now the subject of forgiveness was very heavy, very important, to the mind of Christ for He adds this footnote to His prayer; "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. "But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. 

Forgiveness, it is the act of setting someone free from an obligation to you that is the result of a wrong done against you. And I think that possibly the best story in the Bible that illustrates this whole theme of forgiveness is found in Matthew 18:21-35. It says, Then Peter came to Him and said, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. "Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. "And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. In my Bible it suggests an amount that would exceed fifty two million dollars. "But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. "The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, 'Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.' "Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. Crossed it off. Zero. 'But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. 

My Bible suggests a sum of forty-four dollars. And he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!' "So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.' "And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay that debt. "So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. "Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. 'Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?' "And his master was angry, and delivered him to the tortures until he should pay all that was due to him. "So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses. 

Again and again Peter rushed into speech in such a way that he drew from Jesus teachings that are immortal that we shall never forget, and on this occasion, Peter thought that he was being very generous. He asked Jesus how often he ought to forgive his brother, and then answered his own question by suggesting that he should forgive seven times. Now Peter was not without warrant for this suggestion. Because in Judaism it was taught that all you needed to do was to forgive three times. The rabbinic teaching was that a man must forgive his brother three times, and Rabbi Hanina said, he who begs forgiveness from his neighbor must not do so more than three times. 

Rabbi Jose Ben Jehuda said, if a man commits an offence once, they forgive him. If he commits an offence the second time, they forgive him. If he commits an offence the third time, they forgive him. The forth time, they do not forgive him. The biblical proof that this was correct as far as the rabbis were concerned was taken from an Old Testament text, and let me show it to you. It's in Amos. The old prophet is giving some denunciations and judgments, and follow as he says in verse 3, Amos 1:3, "For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment. Notice verse 6. "For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment. Look at verse 9. "For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment. Look at verse 11. "For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment. Notice verse 13. "For three transgressions of the people of Ammon, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment. 

Look at verse 1 chapter 2. "For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment. Look at verse 4. "For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment. And verse 6. "For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment. Now, from these verses those ancient rabbis had deduced that God's forgiveness extends to three offences, and that He visits the sinner with punishment on the fourth. It was not to be thought that a man could be more gracious than God, so forgiveness was limited to three times.

Now Peter thought that he was going very far, for he takes the rabbinic three times multiplies it by two, adds one for good measure, and suggests with eager self-satisfaction that it will be enough to forgive seven times. Peter expected to be warmly commended, but Jesus' answer was that the Christian must forgive seventy times seven. That means that forgiveness does not have a limit. It's unlimited. Then, of course, we read the story where Jesus tells of the man who owed his master fifty million dollars; couldn't pay it, begged for forgiveness, and his master crossed off the debt. He found his friend down the street who owed him for his lawnmower that cost forty-four dollars, and because he hasn't returned it, he puts him in prison. And when the lord who had forgiven the man so much, he said, O you wicked servant! I forgave you so much and you didn't forgive at all. Now there is from this story I think a number of great truths. But first of all remember that a man must forgive in order to be forgiven. 

Now true forgiveness comes when we as sinners come to Jesus Christ and we say, Lord Jesus I am a sinner. I ask you to forgive me of my sins. And on that occasion, forgiveness is vertical, but from now on it must flow horizontal before it can flow vertically. For Jesus said, if I don't forgive, I will not be forgiven. That is a divine principle. And the second lesson this story teaches is that we do not really understand forgiveness if we fail to forgive. Forgiveness puts us in a debt position and it must be repaid, and it is repaid by forgiving others who hurt us. Forgiveness is mans' greatest need and his highest achievement. 

Mark 11:25 says, "And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. "But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses." There are numerous words used in the original Greek language for the word sin as it is translated in our English text. The word for debt, we've noticed in our prayer, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And the word debt here is a word for sin, and it's used only a few times in the New Testament, but its verb form is found often. Of the 30 times it is used in its verb form, 25 times it refers to moral or spiritual debt. There's another word for sin, hamartia, it's the most common and it carries the root idea of missing the mark. Sin misses the mark of God's standard of righteousness. And then there's another word, paraptoma, which often is rendered trespass, is the sin of slipping or falling as the result of carelessness; just unintentionally slipping off into some pathway that leads down to sin and shame. And then there's another word which refers to stepping across the line, going beyond the limits prescribed by God, and it's translated in our English Bible, transgression. And then there's a word, anomia, which means lawlessness, a still more intentional and a flagrant sin. It's direct and open rebellion against God and His ways. Now, we come to this conclusion that sin is a moral and a spiritual debt to God that must be paid.

Sin is that which separates man from God, and is therefore mans' greatest enemy and greatest problem. Sin dominates the heart and the mind of man, and it has contaminated every human being and is the degenerative power that makes man susceptible to disease, illness, and every conceivable form of evil. The ultimate effects of sin are death and damnation, and the present effects of sin are misery, dissatisfaction, and guilt. As it is contrary to the holiness of God, sin is a defilement, a dishonor, and a reproach to us. As it is a violation of His law, it is a crime and as to the guilt which we contract thereby, it's a spiritual debt and as creatures we owe a debt of obedience to God, our Creator. And through failure to render the same on the account of our rank disobedience, we have incurred a debt, a punishment, for it is for this that we implore and seek divine forgiveness. Now getting to the heart of the matter, I'm suggesting that we must some how grasp the dimension of divine forgiveness before we can understand the meaning of human forgiveness. 

As I was thinking earlier this morning, I said to my heart, how can I show this? I want a visual demonstration. I want to show this story. So I ran around the church this morning, early in the morning, collecting all these songbooks. So if you didn't have a songbook today it's because I had it. And I'm stacking these songbooks up as representative of my sins. I couldn't stack enough and there're not enough here to stack to show my sinfulness as a sinner, but Jesus said that there was a fellow who owed his master fifty million bucks. He comes to his master and he says, Master, I can't pay you. Be patient with me and he pleads for forgiveness of this debt, and Jesus says the master crosses off the debt; paid in full. Now he goes out and he finds a fellow servant who owes him forty-four dollars, and he's, in the story, been forgiven all of those sins and he refuses to forgive his fellow brother for this very small infraction of human relations. Now, in this story I want you to see the reason why we don't think it's important to forgive our brother or our sister. I think it is because we've never understood exactly how much we have been forgiven. We've never grasped that. And I want, with the help of God, for us to see that today. O the magnitude and the immensity of divine forgiveness and pardon. 

Paul describes us as sinners in Romans chapter 1 and first of all he says that basic within our human heart and mind I'm antagonistic, I'm at enmity against God. I don't want Him in my life. I don't want Him to curtail my activities. I'm against God. The sinful heart. The man without regeneration has a heart against God. The Bible says the natural mind is at enmity against God. Secondly, there is an inherent rebelliousness against God in me. I rebel against God. The Bible says when they knew God they glorified Him not as God. I don't want God to control my life, and I reject Him, and I turn Him aside as much as I can. And then Paul went on to say not only do I have animosity and enmity in my heart, not only do I reject Him, but he goes on to say neither were they thankful. Although God is the source of every good and perfect gift, and He's the fount of every blessing, yet man spurns Him. Ah, what ingratitude. 

Paul said not only am I against God, not only do I rebel against Him, not only am I unthankful, but he said, my heart is filled with pride. They became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was dark, and professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And so my rebelliousness, my enmity, my animosity, my rejection of God, my human pride; I stack up a pile of sins a million miles high. What's God's reaction? Well in verse 18 of Romans 1 it says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And in John 3:36 it says, "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." And thus, by my rebellion, my rejection, my pride, my antagonism I have stacked up sins a mile high and as the result, I am the direct object of the wrath of God. The theologian says that God's wrath means that He intensely hates all sin. 

Now I'm talking about a subject that is very seldom talked about in the pulpit today, and I grieve over that as a pastor, because we never can appreciate our salvation until we realize what we have been saved from. And if we do not realize that we have been saved from the wrath of God, because this stack of sins stacked on me could condemn me to hell for all of eternity without God unless I can find forgiveness for my sin. Romans 2, Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. The longer I live in rebellion against God, I keep piling them on. I'm treasuring up for myself wrath, against the day of wrath when God's judgment falls. 

Go with me to Colossians 3:5-6, Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. Go with me to 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. You see this subject is throughout the entire Scriptures, and why preachers don't preach on it, I don't know. Notice, I think it's about verse 7, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power. My sins make me the object of God's wrath, and that wrath will ultimately, unless my sins are forgiven, send me to hell. 

We may not like God's attribute of wrath, but we should be grateful for it. God hates sin, and we wouldn't want a God who loves sin. We wouldn't worship Him. Then, the gospel. In Jesus Christ we have been forgiven. God's wrath has been lifted. We've been adopted into His eternal family and we've been gifted eternal life. When you come to Jesus Christ and say, Jesus, I want You to be my savior. I'm a sinner and I need Your forgiveness, and I ask You to forgive my of all of my sins and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. That is exactly what He does. The Bible says He takes our sins from us and He forgives us. He casts them from us as far as the east is from the west, never to be remembered against us again. We are absolutely as if we had never sinned, and the slate is clean, and I stand before God as if I had never owed Him a debt. 

You see that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we mean when we talk about being saved, being born again, claiming Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, asking Him to forgive us from all of our transgressions and all of our sins, and He forgives them, and He wipes the slate clean. When we knelt today around the communion table and we asked the Lord to forgive us, we walk out of this sanctuary just as if we had never sinned. Justification. And I tell the story because I never forgot it, just as if we'd never sinned.

When our little boy Leighton, who led worship today, was a little tiny guy we dressed him up for Sunday School. While mother and I were getting ready, he decides he's going for a trip in the backyard, and he gets into a mud puddle, and I mean, he's a mess. I go get him, stand him on the kitchen draining board and wash him off, and he stands there just squeaky clean as if he had never been in a mud puddle. It's true spiritually. When we come to Jesus Christ and we say, Jesus forgive me of those sins. God's wrath is lifted, I'm a new creation in Christ Jesus, the sins are taken away, and I'm forgiven. The glorious gift of God. And Jesus says if I've been forgiven all of those sins, I am divinely obligated to forgive my fellow brother, or sister, their sins. And if I don't forgive this one, I don't appreciate what God has done to save me from hell. I with flagrant arrogance look down on the forgiveness that God has given me if I don't forgive. I said that forgiveness is mans' greatest need, because if God doesn't forgive us we're a lost soul, but forgiveness also is mans' highest achievement. 

You see, forgiveness is not cheap. Forgiveness is costly. Forgiveness cost God the cross, and Christ to die on that cross, and that's what it cost to forgive us. The cross of Calvary; that is costly. For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God loved us so much to make forgiveness possible; Jesus went to the cross and paid sin's penalty for you and me. And the reason why I don't talk with lightness about the subject of forgiveness is because I know how hard it is for most of us. It's costly. We've got to give up our pride. We've got to give up that pain. We've got to give up that resentment. We've got to give up that desire to get even. It's costly. And with God, forgiveness is an act. For man, it's a process. 

You know what I'm talking about, forgiveness doesn't come easy; I mean something light. When I'm talking about forgiveness, I'm digging deep in the furloughs of human life this morning. Because there are some who sit here who have been deeply hurt by someone else. You have been wronged and that pain is intense, and the bitterness is there and it's hard to deal with that, and for many of us it's a process. Many, many years ago, a minister friend of mine did me a deep hurt. I mean it was a hurt so deep if I could've taken a firebomb and blew his house up, I would have. I was that angry; filled with that much anger. And I'll tell you it took me months, in fact, a couple of years to work through that process of seeing him as a person that God also loved and that I must love even though he did me a deep hurt. Forgiveness is costly. 

As I preached in one of the services today, a lovely lady sat over here and I watched her as she began to really weep, and after the service she came up and just weeping. She said, you know, Pastor, she said you talk about forgiveness, she said for five years I've been robbed of the joy of my children. They've been taken from me, and she said I've not seen them, and she said there's bitterness and there's anger because of the people who've done this and the lies that were told, but I know that someday I've got to forgive them. That's a deep, deep valley of forgiveness. And I talk with families who've been severed and I see the anguish of the mate who has been wronged and I see people as they wrestle with this whole matter of forgiveness and lies that have absolutely ruined families.

I talked with a family the other day that is, I mean that family is so riddled and torn apart, living in the same community, but won't even speak to each other. When I talk about forgiveness, I'm talking about something that for many of us is a deep, deep thing that has been there for a long, long time. And It's hard, it's hard to forgive someone who's created such intense pain, and such deep hurt. But look at what Jesus said, if I don't forgive, I get turned over to the tormentors. Right? That fellow who wouldn't forgive his fellow servant for the forty four dollars, the master who forgave him the fifty million said you take him and you put him on the rack, and the implied is the more you turn that rack the more intensity. I mean, when you live with bitterness and resentment, and it turns your spirit ugly, and your heart angry, and it changes your whole personality.You know what it means to go through the bitterness and the torment of not forgiving. 

What do I do? The Bible makes it very, very clear. If I'm going to enjoy this forgiveness, I've got to forgive. It's a divine obligation. It's a divine principle, and may I suggest that if your life has been filled with bitterness and resentment because you've not forgiven somebody, start dealing with it now. You say, where do I start? Well I've listed down in my notes five steps to forgiveness. Would you like to write them down? Then we'll go home. Five steps to forgiveness. It's just practical help to put this spiritual truth into operation. Number one; restoring the attitude of love. Write it down. Restoring the attitude of love. To love another is to see that person as full of worth and precious regardless of any wrongdoing, and love is possible when we see the other's value once more. Recognize their preciousness and choose to be understanding even of what is beyond the ability to be understood. You say, say that again Pastor. Where I start with forgiveness is somehow I've got to realize that the past is the past. I can't change the past. There's not a thing I can do about yesterday, and I can't live there, and I'm a fool if I try. And because I must put the past behind me, I must see this person, I've had to look at that pastor and recognize that God also loves him, and he probably is hurt over the matter as much as I've hurt over it. And I've got to say, dear God, help me to see him as You see him as an object of Your love. 

Secondly, I must release the painful past. Got to do it. To come to terms with reality is to accept the past as past, to demand that what was done must be redone is fantasy and not reality. In anger we struggle with the illusion that we can turn time backwards and run it all through again, that we can make others undo what he or she did. You can't do it. Yesterday is gone forever. Why hold on to the hurts of yesterday? 

Thirdly, reconstruct the relationship. Now this is where the real work begins. Find a way that you can go to that person and say, listen, I want the past to be forgiven and I want you to forgive me and I forgive you, and let's reconstruct this relationship. You see, the Bible says if your brother wrongs you, rebuke him. You see, in the reconstruction it's not saying, well, I just say okay it's forgiven, it's forgiven. No. No, you don't do it that way. I go to my brother and I say, brother, I've got this thing in my heart and it's been there, and I know it's wrong and maybe you never thought of it as the way it happened, but it hurt me and I've got to let you know it. In other words, reconstruction involves confrontation. Forgiveness doesn't work unless there's that confrontation, and sometimes it's not a happy confrontation to start with. It's painful, but you've got to start there and be real honest, open up your heart, and you'd be surprised, you would be surprised what would pour forth from a heart when you said to them, I want to start this friendship all over again, but before I do I've got to tell you how much you've hurt me. And now that I've told you, that person, and I've done this two or three times, and when they started pouring out their heart to me, they say, Don, the reason why I did it is because these things were going on in my life, and I had this kind of pressure, and I didn't think that you'd be effected by it this way. And I'll tell you when that heart opens up you begin to see how they see what created the problem. 

Fourthly, reopen the future without restrictions. Now look at, I'm going to forgive you, but I don't expect this ever to happen again. No. Jesus said, I mean, it will happen seventy times seven all over again. You say, I open up the future without putting restrictions on the possibility of it not happening again, because it will. We're human beings, but this is the process of forgiveness. And lastly, reaffirmation of our relationship, reconciliation must end in celebration. That's where you've gone through this process. You've opened up your heart, you've released the past, you've forgiven, you've opened up the future, then you celebrate. How do you celebrate? That's up to you. When Christ forgave me my celebration was a heart filled with joy and a mouth filled with song, and I celebrate my forgiveness. But in celebration there is the healing that starts taking place. Rejoicing that now this matter is behind us and we're open to a new world. It's a big subject, isn't? Forgiveness. 

Let's pray. Father in heaven I know that when I speak on this subject it's not something that's just the frothy elements of life, because life has hurt some of us extremely deeply. People have, and situations, left us bitter, callused, resentful, and it's just distorted life from all of its beauty and its blessedness. And when we talk about forgiveness it's dealing with all of this. It's not something that easily done. But today, Lord Jesus, if we're going to pray this as part of our prayer, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, we recognize that we're under divine obligation to forgive. It has no options, but now to deal with it, I need Your help dear God. I need the ability to see that person as You see them, and I need You to give me the courage to confront, and then to start the process of healing. Please help me dear Jesus. And everybody said, amen. Amen. God bless you. God bless you.