Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to Living Hope. For the rest of you who don't know where the kids are going, they're trying to get to children's church, but don't leave yet.
[00:00:06] I want to say just something important before they leave, and the kids are a part of this. For the last some years, since mid-2021, Judith Shearman has been leading children's ministry faithfully and in a great way. And so last week we had a business meeting and we voted to bring on two other people, Sarah Scott and Jonathan Burkey, to take over leading kids ministry. And. And Judith stepping out of that role. But I just wanted us all as a church to say thank you and congratulate her. And I have a card for her, too. She didn't know about this, but I have a card for her, too, that I'd like to gift her. But can you just give her a round of applause and say thank you for the work that she's done?
[00:00:55] All right. And the kids are still here, which is good.
[00:00:58] Starting this Sunday and the following Sundays until the second Sunday of December, they'll be practicing for a kids choir that they're going to be doing Kids Christmas choir. And so not only now are children ages 3 to 5 welcome to go to children's church. Ages 6 through 5th grade, through high school, actually, if you're helping with the kids choir, you're welcome to go back to children's church or their time of practice. So now you can get up and go that direction. I know it's strange. They're like, don't know what to do with these changes. But as they're leaving, encourage you to open your Bibles. We're gonna spend a few minutes in Ephesians 4, so if your Bibles, you can grab your Bibles and we'll open that direction also. As they're leaving, hopefully you have a bulletin. How many of you have a bulletin? If you have a bulletin, put it up in the air. All right, awesome. Inside your bulletin, you'll see a few things happening, as Pastor Les already mentioned. But one of the things that's not in there, we do this on the first Sunday of the month. Many go to Mod Pizza and eat lunch together. Have a great time. In the foyer, there's some flyers like this. If you are going to go, encourage you to do that. There's a fundraising opportunity for us as a church.
[00:02:09] You can take that with you and have an opportunity to be able to. That gets us about 25% or so of all of the purchases made. And then that goes towards Missions as well. One of the other things I want to say about kids ministry before we dive into our series that we're starting today, not in John.
[00:02:28] Is this because of the shift between Judah stepping out of kids ministry? We do need some extra help in the nursery. How many of you have worked with babies before but are not doing it now?
[00:02:40] You're like, I don't know if I want to raise my hand.
[00:02:44] We need a few people to come and help during this Sunday school time. So from 9 to 9:45, to help with kids in the nursery, just holding babies and hanging out with babies. How many of you like babies?
[00:02:55] If you don't, we're going to have words, but we need some help there. And so if you could reach out to either Sarah Scott or myself and say, hey, I can hang out one time a month for an hour with some babies and help administer in the church in that way, it'd be so, so helpful to us as a church. We're starting a new series today.
[00:03:19] As you can see the title on the screen. I want to just give you a little bit of just a synopsis. If your Bible, if you have a Bible, we're going to spend just a few minutes. Kind of the root passage will be in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32. It's kind of the root of where we are today. But this series, the Hardest Habits of a Healthy Church. This year we have been leaning into this idea of what is a healthy church.
[00:03:38] Every year we look at one different we really lean into one main word of a mission word for our church there. It's gather, grow and go. And so this year, the gather word has been what we've talked more about. And particularly as we think about this word gather, the question we've been asking and answering through this year has been what does a healthy church member look like and what is a healthy church? Kind of both of those questions together. And so as we concluded, John, after about a year and a half or two years or so, we we're gonna spend four weeks on this series asking this question or actually speaking to this question.
[00:04:13] What are some healthy and also really hard habits that we as church members, both the church gathered together here, but also the church scattered, need to practice in order to walk obediently to our Lord. And so we know, and hopefully you know this, not all habits are bad, right? We often talk about bad habits. I got all these bad habits, but there's also good habits. Any of you have any good habits?
[00:04:38] Hopefully you all have like a good habit of brushing your teeth or something, Right? There's good habits that we have in our life. And a habit is simply this, a settled or regular tendency to practice something, especially something that's hard to give up. Maybe it's a habit that you've built into the regular rhythm of your morning or of your evening. You just do the same thing each time because it's just kind of built into your life. And so in this series will address and speak to four healthy habits that we as church members, as Christians really should one understand well, but also practice regularly. So the goal of this series is threefold. Someone say threefold.
[00:05:19] Threefold. It's this. Firstly, remind us of the value of these practices through God's Word instruction in God's Word.
[00:05:28] Secondly, to speak to the reasons they tend to be hard habits, the reasons we tend to struggle with practicing these things regularly. So the value of what God's word says about this, because all these things are rooted in the word of God. What does God's Word say about it? Secondly, why do we struggle to have these as regular habits in our life? And thirdly, to call us to take joy in practicing these Jesus instructed disciplines. So remind us of the value from God's Word to speak to the reasons why we struggle with these habits and then to call us to take joy in actually practicing the things that God that Jesus instructs us to do. So for week one, where we are today, we'll dive into this topic, one that we're well familiar with, but perhaps is a challenge for us all. It may be a challenge at different seasons of our life. And it's this, it's forgiveness.
[00:06:24] So week one, today we will talk about forgiveness. Forgiving frequently is the habit that we'll lean into this morning. Let's pray and then we'll get into God's word.
[00:06:34] Lord Jesus, we are grateful this morning as we've sung already of your incredible forgiveness for us, of your love for us. How deep the Father's love for us, a love that is active, that moves towards us even while we were yet sinners. You in your love died in our place as the substitute for us.
[00:06:58] You, as we sung earlier again, are a holy God.
[00:07:03] Glory is assigned to your name.
[00:07:06] And so as we spend time talking about this subject this morning, as we walk through your word, we ask that you would open our eyes and our ears to the things that you want to say, the things that you want to do in us, the healing work perhaps that you want to do in our hearts, the reminding work you want to do in us as well. And most definitely, Lord, the believing that we need to have that first, we are forgiven by you. We've confessed our sins and trusted in you as our Lord. And that there can be great joy and freedom as we forgive one another.
[00:07:36] So help us in this time, in Jesus name, amen.
[00:07:40] All right, I said earlier there's kind of a root passage and it's this. Ephesians 4, 32.
[00:07:46] Be kind to one another. What's the next word?
[00:07:50] Tenderhearted. It's a soft heart that's resisting pride. Being aware of that, forgiving one another as God in Christ. What forgave you so forgiving frequently is what you can see. So if you have a bulletin, hopefully you raised it up earlier. On the back of it, there's gonna be an outline, things you can write down, fill in the blanks, but also encourage you to write other notes as we talk through them. So as we delve into the subject, it will be helpful for us to attach. And I want you to really hear this. Attach.
[00:08:20] And this could be hard for some of us. Attach a situation or a real life scenario in your life where you forgave someone, okay? So think for your own self in your own life, right now, wherever you're sitting. When did I forgive someone? And I'm not talking about like they did some trivial thing and I just let them off the hook. That's not what I'm talking about.
[00:08:40] Think right now for yourself about a time that somebody wronged you and you chose to forgive them. Okay? This is important.
[00:08:48] So take a minute, do that right now. Maybe you want to write down the person's name. Maybe if they're not sitting next to you, maybe they know they're sitting next to you.
[00:08:56] But this is important because before we get into this, it's important that we know, we remember the root of when we have practiced forgiveness. And when we get a little later on, we'll talk about maybe the struggles that we trying to forgive. But firstly, I have chosen to see somebody's fault that they've done towards me. It was something they did wrong. But I chose to release the anger, the bitterness, the resentment, the need for retaliation. I chose to release that. I have chosen to forgive them. So think about that. Maybe write that, write that down somewhere. Hold that thought in your mind as we go through this. Now, I just alluded to something a minute ago. I think it's also important, before we go into the greater text that we're gonna be looking at or the various passages is that we define forgiveness because forgiveness can be defined in all sorts of different ways. Right? People can have all sorts of different opinions about what it actually means to forgive someone. I put a hopefully helpful working definition that we'll look at. Maybe you can write this down. It's on the screen here.
[00:09:58] This understanding of forgiveness. As we define this, we wanna define forgiveness. And. And this is a subject that is deep, that's involved and so right out of the gate. Also, I'll say this at the end, I'll give you a few books that I encourage you to pick up if you want to learn more about what it looks like to forgive. Well, because this is an overview. Someone say overview.
[00:10:22] This is an overview. This is such an incredibly deep subject. There's so many nuances, there's so many aspects to this. We are not going to cover every different piece of it and in depth. So we're doing. What was the word?
[00:10:34] An overview. Someone say overview. Overview. So when you come out to me later and you say, duba, you didn't mention this part. I know. Okay. There is a lot of different pieces of this that I'm not gonna be able to address. But this is something that Scripture speaks clearly to and regularly to in the life of the follower of Jesus. Now, forgiveness is, as we're thinking about, this definition of forgiveness. I'll read it in just a moment. Forgiveness is different than forbearance. Forbearance sometimes we can confuse with this word of forgiveness. Oh, you know, they left the microwave door open again. It's okay, I'll forgive you. Okay. Maybe that's just putting up with somebody for a little while. All right. Maybe it's like there's just some annoying things that people do that you don't like. And so if you will forbear, you are willing to let that go. But this definition of forgiveness, let me just read it. To forgive is to acknowledge the wrong that was done to you. And we're going to use this definition later on as well to realize that you have a felt right to enact some kind of retaliation for the wrong that was done and to obediently choose to surrender that right and graciously view the offender as God does.
[00:11:42] Biblical forgiveness reflects God. And that's kind of. That first part is really in one sentence, what you can hold to. But the second sentence, also important. Biblical forgiveness reflects God's compassionate heart towards the offender.
[00:11:55] Choosing to entrust your desire for forgiven, for justice, into God's sovereign hand, we're saying, I know that I feel like I have the right to do something because they did something that I didn't like. And it's saying, I'm going to let God take over in that situation.
[00:12:12] So in short, forgiveness is not a feeling, though it can include that. It's not just. It's not forgetting because we. Unless you have really short term memory or something, forgiveness is not excusing what happened. So what does it mean when we forgive? It's saying, I'm not gonna dwell on this, I wanna let this go. It's saying, I'm not gonna bring it up to other people to stir up problems against that person.
[00:12:38] It's also a commitment to say to that other person that wrongs you, I'm not gonna keep bringing this up so that I can tear you down. It does cost us deeply. It is hard.
[00:12:51] And so in this incredibly complex subject, there's many really challenging, there's many pieces that are hard to unpack in great detail. So like I said earlier, at the end we'll talk through, I'll share some books that you can read through and understand this subject a little bit better on your outline. You could write this in. Firstly, and I said this earlier, we want to know what does the Bible actually say about the subject of.
[00:13:16] And so what does the Bible say? Simple question. The Bible says a lot. Again, we're doing an overview. Someone say overview. Overview, but also significantly important. What does the Bible say about forgiveness? I want to speak to two aspects of forgiveness in regards to what the Bible says. You can write some of these passages down, some of these verses that I'll touch on. Only one will be on the screen here, but Ephesians, chapter one. We read that Pastor Les read this earlier in him that this is firstly of forgiveness, how God forgives us. And secondly, we'll look at how we are instructed to forgive others. So firstly, God's forgiveness of us. Secondly, how we're called to forgive others. God frequently forgives. Are you grateful that God is a forgiving God?
[00:13:58] My goodness, me too. In him we have redemption through his blood. The forgiveness of our trespasses according or that of our sins of we know it was wrong and we did it anyway. According to the riches of his.
[00:14:11] Remember Jesus, he's hanging on the cross and he looks down and he says this, Father, what?
[00:14:17] Forgive them. A practice of our Lord and Savior is forgiveness. Isaiah, chapter one. This is Old Testament, verse 18. Come now, let us settle the matter, says the Lord. Though your sins are like maybe you know this verse. Scarlet they shall be white as snow. Though they are red as crimson, they shall be like white.
[00:14:40] Isaiah 40:3. I even I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake and remember your sins no more. The God we worship is a forgiving God. Amen.
[00:14:52] And so, as we consider that, we look at the second piece that I mentioned earlier. Let me read Micah 7 as well. Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and what forgives the transgressions of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever, but you delight to delight, maybe underline that somewhere in your mind delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us. You will tread our sins and underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the seed. I am so grateful we have a God who forgives in that way.
[00:15:27] And also not just does the Bible speak about a God who frequently forgives, but also as God's people, we. We are called to reflect the character of God in our own lives by being people who also choose to practice forgiveness. Not just sometimes, but what's the word?
[00:15:45] All the time? Or as the title of the sermon is frequently, right? Frequently we see Luke chapter six.
[00:15:54] Luke chapter six speaks about this as well. To love our who enemies.
[00:16:00] Leviticus 19, Old Testament. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.
[00:16:11] I think this is on the screen as well, a Matthew passage. In Matthew 18, Peter speaking to Jesus about this thing of forgiveness. Peter comes up to him, says this Jesus or Lord, how often?
[00:16:25] It's a great question, right? We've all asked this question.
[00:16:27] How often will my brother sin against me and I should forgive him? How often do I need to forgive him? Same person, maybe even the same thing. How often should I forgive him? As many as how many times?
[00:16:39] Seven times?
[00:16:42] Jesus says to him, not even just seven times, but what, 70 times seven? And here's the feeling that maybe you have felt as well. Somebody apologizes to you, you forgive them and. And then it happens again. And then it happens again. You're like, when can I stop?
[00:17:00] When can I be done forgiving this person? The Bible is full. We'll answer that question a little later on. The Bible is full of stories of people who chose to forgive. Remember Joseph, the guy with the coat of many colors? And then his brothers throw him into a hold and they sell him. Then he ends up in prison and all this stuff happens. And his brothers come falling at his feet. And Joseph chooses. After a series of some interesting situations and conversations, Joseph chooses to forgive him. The Prodigal son who takes half of his father's property and squanders it. And then he comes running back. He comes actually not running. He comes walking back with his head down to his father. And what does his father do?
[00:17:44] He forgives him. Says, let's have a feast. Let's rejoice, my son who was lost. He is now found. A woman caught in adultery. Jesus offers forgiveness. Jacob Esau forgives Jacob for what he did to him. Stephen, the first martyr in the early church. In Acts, they're stoning him because of his proclamation of his faith. And Stephen says the same thing that Jesus does as he's being stoned. What does he say? Father, forgive them.
[00:18:10] And obviously we know, as we spoke earlier about this, Jesus demonstrating incredible forgiveness even as he hung on the cross. So not only is forgiveness taught in Scripture, it's also practiced by those who trust in God's hand of justice, who love faithfully and who desire restoration when there's brokenness in a relationship. Now, I'm sure that we've all had situations where forgiveness is hard. Anyone have a time when it's been hard to forgive someone?
[00:18:36] I have. I'll raise my own hand here. I'll raise both of them. Where it's hard to forgive someone for something that has happened. You don't struggle with forgiveness. Maybe if you're a follower of Jesus, if you have read your Bible before, you don't struggle with forgiveness because you're like, I'm not really sure if Jesus has called me to forgive. That's often not why we struggle with forgiveness, because we don't know what the Bible says about our call to forgive. But oftentimes it's at least two things. One, perhaps this, the weight of the offense against you, the significance of the sin, if you will. And secondly, maybe it's because you don't know, because you don't know in that time how to handle such a complex offense against you. Maybe it's incredibly hurtful. Or you're like, okay, I think I wanna forgive them, but I don't really know what that looks like right now. And so this next point, what I wanna address is at least just seven, actually seven common questions about forgiveness. Because I know this is something that is incredibly relevant in every one of our lives and questions that you hopefully have asked. And I want to encourage you with this. Maybe if you've never asked these questions before, don't just dismiss the question. One, you're probably likely to ask it at some point in time. Or two, somebody else is Going to ask you one of these questions now. I put the questions, they'll be on the screen as we walk through them and I'll just answer them as we go through them, just for a few minutes each. Firstly, question number one. Is this common questions? You could write that in. In point two, why should we forgive? Because I'll just answer a few points here really. Again, overview of this. Why should we forgive one? Because we have been forgiven by a holy God, not just by another sinner, but by a holy God. It's one thing for a sinner to forgive another sinner because we're both kind of on the same plane of sinning, right? Are we all sinners here? Right. We all need forgiveness from somebody else. But to say a holy and perfect God, someone who has never done anything wrong ever and never will do anything wrong, says, I forgive you, why should we forgive? Because you and I have been forgiven by a perfectly holy God. We have all wronged others and we're all gonna need forgiveness ourselves. Even in the Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6 says that we should. He says, excuse me, forgive us as we have forgiven. Even as we approach the Lord recognizing you, you forgave me, I'm gonna forgive others, I'm gonna forgive others, and I'm grateful for your forgiveness of my sins.
[00:21:09] One other piece to this is when we don't forgive other people. You probably know this if you've ever forgiven someone. If you don't forgive or if you struggle with forgiveness, if you don't, it negatively affects your own relationship with God. Doesn't keeps us from experiencing the healing and the freedom that Jesus wants for for our lives. Second question, what about forgiveness if the other person is gone or they've died?
[00:21:34] Cause for some of us that's very, very real.
[00:21:37] Somebody who's no longer in my realm of life, I'm not able to have a conversation with them anymore. Or maybe they've died for whatever it is. I can't have a conversation with them. But I'm holding onto this pain that they have caused me. So what if the other person is gone or they've died? Forgiveness is not something that get this requires two people, though that can be helpful. Reconciliation, that's a two person activity. Forgiveness is me choosing to release the hold the other person has on me by believing what is true, by releasing my felt or my desire to enact justice and to seek to love them with healthy boundaries. We'll talk more about boundaries in a minute. Reconciliation, though, may not happen. Even though I've chosen to Forgive someone. Okay, I can still say I'm letting go of this thing I've been holding onto even though this person is gone. And because they're gone doesn't mean I have to hold onto it forever. Third question, why does Jesus care so much about this?
[00:22:41] It is all over scripture. Why does he care so much about this? We've touched on this a little bit earlier.
[00:22:46] Speak to a little bit more here. When Christians don't forgive frequently, we're demonstrating our own lack of either one, our understanding of the depth of our sin before a holy God, or two, the gracious love and forgiveness of our Savior toward us or three, the direct command Jesus gives us. So if we're not forgiving, Jesus is like, I want you to forgive. Why Jesus? Because he's like, don't you see the depth of your own sin before holy God? Don't you see the gracious love of God towards you? And by the way, I commanded you to do it because I know it's good for you. Colossians 3:13 says this Forgive as the Lord forgave you. That's a pretty sounds pretty clear to me, doesn't it? Does that sound clear to you? Pretty clear.
[00:23:35] Why does Jesus care so much about it? Perhaps this a lack of forgiveness on our part demonstrates our own personal pride and and our willingness to stay divided even though Jesus came to bring about Christ centered unity.
[00:23:48] And lastly, there's a verse on the screen about this as well in Psalm 103.
[00:23:53] We Christians are to be a reflection of the character of God to the people of the world. And one of the greatest ways that you can show that is by your love being demonstrated through forgiveness. It's one thing to say that I love other people because God loves me. One of the most clear and powerful ways you can demonstrate the love of God to other people is when they choose to offend you, whether intentionally or unintentionally. But they offend you, they hurt you in some way. You say, I'm offering you the gift of forgiveness. That's an incredible way to show love towards somebody. The passage on the screen, Psalm 103, 1011 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the what earth so great is his love for those who fear him as far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from us. Let's look at the fourth question.
[00:24:48] Why is forgiveness? Maybe this is just me, but maybe some of you here today as well. Why is forgiveness so hard?
[00:24:56] Why is it so hard? And there's many answers to this. I won't speak to all of them, but perhaps for one, we don't understand it.
[00:25:05] We think it means that I have to let the offender think that what they did was right.
[00:25:10] If I choose to forgive you, you may go, oh, okay, cool. And they move on with their life. So some, there might be a misunderstanding of forgiveness. Secondly, because we don't know how to navigate boundaries with that person after we tell them that I forgave them, right? You with me there? I forgive you. They're like, okay, cool. Do we just go back to normal? Is everything okay? How do I figure out boundaries? And so sometimes it's like, it's hard to forgive because I don't know what the other side of this looks like. I know what this looks like, though. I don't like it. But I am concerned about what the other side might look like, because perhaps if we do, it seems to close the door to having more conversations about the pain that we're still dealing with. Because I forgave someone doesn't mean that I suddenly no longer feel pain any longer by what happened.
[00:26:00] And so sometimes I struggle to forgive because, wait, does that mean I now close the door for me being allowed to experience my pa, Right? Good, healthy forgiveness does not mean that we close the door to those conversations.
[00:26:14] And lastly, before we look at the fifth question, is this because on some level we feel it means that our pain isn't as big or as important as it really is?
[00:26:25] Sometimes we deeply still feel it, and we feel like, wait, for me to let go of this. Feels almost unjust.
[00:26:31] There should be punishment for what happened. And so for me, letting this go, it feels like it's like it's not just. And let me be honest. On some level, it's not.
[00:26:42] On some level, forgiveness is not a just response.
[00:26:45] Consider God, who is completely and wholly just a just response. For our sin is what death. That is justice.
[00:26:54] And yet we know the Lord holds perfectly justice and love, justice and grace together.
[00:26:59] And so as we practice forgiveness, we. What we're saying is this, God, I'm gonna let you take care of the justice part, and I'm gonna hold onto the grace part.
[00:27:08] It's not that we're ignoring justice, but we're saying grace is what I want to move through me in this situation.
[00:27:17] Now, another question that I know I have felt, and maybe you have felt as well, when you've been harmed or hurt in a significant way is this. What if I need more time before I can truly forgive them? What if I need more time? Have you ever thought that before?
[00:27:31] I don't know if I'm ready for this yet.
[00:27:35] And part of this question may stem from not necessarily understanding forgiveness, but also there may be this as well.
[00:27:44] We think if I forgive them, I have to sidestep some of my pain. And I can choose to do both. I can still hold on to I'm feeling hurt right now and also release my anger towards that.
[00:27:58] We can do both of those together. So what if I need more time to forgive them?
[00:28:03] I think maybe it's shortsighted as we consider one, what forgiveness is and how we're called to forgive.
[00:28:11] Again, incredibly complex situation. We need to breathe and spend time with the Lord first and make sure we are right here, this way, before we go to try to do this thing, this relationship. Because again, this relationship is much more important than this relationship, right?
[00:28:24] If we get this right, that helps us do this right. And if we're trying to do this right, these kinds of relationships, right? But we're missing this. We're going to fail at this every single time. And so maybe it does mean I need to take a pause and I need to make sure I'm right this way before I try to handle these kinds of relationships. There was a story I ran across of Corrie 10 Boone.
[00:28:45] She was somebody who interacted in the time of World War II, dealt with the Nazis and a lot of really, really hard things. I won't dive into her story right now, but she shared a story once about a time that she was struggling to forgive someone who had hurt her incredibly.
[00:29:01] And in that time, she said, okay, I'm gonna choose to forgive this person. And so she said, I forgive you to this person. And yet, for weeks, she was dealing with sleepless nights and hard days, struggling to figure out, why can't I sleep? Why am I still dealing with this? I thought I forgave that person.
[00:29:20] And so she approached a pastor, and she asked the pastor this question. And as they're standing in the church and they're discussing this, the pastor looks up and he says, you see that bell up there in the tower? She says, yeah.
[00:29:31] He says, well, in order to ring that bell, you have to pull on this rope to get that bell to ring. And sometimes what it's like when someone is struggling to forgive or hasn't yet forgiven, it's pulling on this rope and you hear the ding, dong, ding dong back and forth, and you're Pulling on this rope, and then when you choose to forgive, it's letting go of that rope.
[00:29:53] But here's the reality. Depending on how hard you were pulling on that rope or how long that bell might keep going back and forth. And so the pastor's advice to her was this, wait a little longer and keep reminding yourself of the truth that you chose to forgive that person. And over time, what happens to the bell? Does it keep dinging?
[00:30:12] A few weeks later, she was able to sleep through the night and move through the rest of her.
[00:30:17] And I thought that was such a helpful story because sometimes, especially when it's a hard, hard thing, it takes us a while to heal through that, even in relationship. But we continue to come back to the truth. I've chosen to forgive this person. Let's look at question six.
[00:30:33] I keep forgiving, but they keep repeating, yeah, we all feel this.
[00:30:42] Forgiveness does not mean that boundaries don't exist.
[00:30:46] I keep forgiving, but they keep repeating, what am I supposed to do now? Sometimes there might need to be some boundaries in place. If someone can't be trusted, you might need to pause from putting them back in that same situation again.
[00:30:57] Might need to consider somewhere else for them to be, or stepping back from entrusting them in that way. Forgiveness. Write this down somewhere. Forgiveness does not negate consequences.
[00:31:10] Just because we forgave them doesn't mean there are not consequences.
[00:31:14] Jesus forgave us of our sins, and yet we still, we're feeling this all here in part, have to deal with the consequences of our sin, do we not?
[00:31:24] He says, I forgive you. As far as the east is from the west, the heavens from the earth, I have forgiven you. And yet we are still dealing with the consequences of our sin. We're not going to be punished eternally for our sin, but you and I have consequences. And the same is true in human relationships as well. We can say, I forgive you. And also there's a consequence for this sin. There's a response appropriate to the action that now is going to take place. So they keep on repeating. If they keep on repeating, you might need to ask yourself, do I need to do something different? Did some boundaries need to be set up in this place so that this continuation of whatever the offense is doesn't keep going? Last question here is this, how do I trust or love someone again who has hurt me?
[00:32:11] How do I love or trust someone again who has hurt me?
[00:32:15] Real question, right? We're on the other side of this forgiveness thing.
[00:32:20] Like, okay, I forgave you, but now what does that look like a few things to think about. One, agape love. We're called to love our enemies, to love our neighbor as our agape love. Is that love? That may not be like, if we were to use another Greek word for love, phileo love. That may not be this. We're buddies now, okay? There may be a boundary that's in place. I'm like, okay, I was greatly hurt by you. I love you. But I'm gonna be over here for a minute. I need to heal for a moment here. It's not to say that I don't care for you, that I'm not gonna help you, that I don't value you, but there may be a place in this relationship that, like, I need a moment here to rebuild trust, most pointedly, because building trust, that's something that's hard, isn't it?
[00:33:07] Trust can take years to build and can be broken like that.
[00:33:13] You all know this.
[00:33:15] Building trust can be so, so hard. And so that time, that distance may be this. I'm building trust right now to see can we do this again? Because I don't want to keep going through whatever the pain is that happened. Three T words that you can write down to help build trust. They all have to work together. And then we'll look to point three here.
[00:33:35] In order to build trust, at least these must exist. Time, truth.
[00:33:41] And for another T word, tenderness. In order to build trust with someone, we have to realize there may be some time that's necessary there to prove that you are not going to hurt this other person again, to show that this situation truly mattered to you. So time. Secondly, truth. Especially if the break in the relationship existed around a lie, unfaithfulness in some way. Truth is vital, continual truth. And I would even add the word in front of that. Proactive truth. Go out of your way to tell the truth. And then lastly, tenderness. You have to be kind to the person. Don't just wait a long time. Tell them the truth and stay away and hope that one day trust is rebuilt. It takes some intentional kindness towards the other person. So there's seven common questions. I hope maybe you've considered some of these more deeply as we look at them here. I want to look at point three before we move on. You can take a picture of those. You can go back and look through notes and stuff and listen to the sermon again. As you think through this again, we're doing an overview of those questions. These are deep, important questions, ones we must consider if we want to be a church, if we want to be God's people that forgive. Well, looks like a point three on your outline. You could write this down.
[00:34:52] You're like, we're waiting till, like, okay. I thought we were talking about the church. Really. The church is not just the gathering of God's people, but it's God's people everywhere. It's God's people scattered. So the church scattered is what you could write down here. And that is this as we consider hard things, hard habits of a healthy church. It's not just us all together. When we're here together right now singing songs and all of that, though, that's important.
[00:35:16] But what does it look like when God's people are spread out all over the place? Because if we're forgiving, well, when we're all over the place, it's going to be a lot easier for us to forgive when we come together as God's people corporately. Right.
[00:35:28] But if we're struggling with forgiveness out there everywhere, when we come together as God's people all together in the same space, it's also gonna be a big struggle for us. So firstly, we have to understand what does God's word say about it? We saw that in point one. We understood some questions that we had to sort through to know what it looks like to forgive biblically. But then also we need to know what does it look like to forgive. Well, when we're not here with other people with smiling faces and everyone's like, how was your week? My week was good. Right. Cause it's a lot easier to deal with people then with a smiling face all the time. But what about when we are God's church scattered?
[00:36:03] Write some of these things down when you're at home, maybe you're married with someone and they do something wrong.
[00:36:12] So the church scattered. What does that look like?
[00:36:15] Forgiveness?
[00:36:16] Maybe it's a spouse that you need to forgive. Because if you're married here today, I have a news, a piece of news for you. You married a sinner.
[00:36:25] They may or may not sin in your marriage. I'm not sure.
[00:36:29] And if that happens, they might even do something that is wrong to you. They might actually wrong you. And if that happens, what should you respond with that was, we've gone this far, what should you respond with?
[00:36:43] Forgiveness? Right.
[00:36:45] It's the church scattered. It's not okay, they've wronged me, but we're not at church. It doesn't really matter right now. I'm just gonna hold that against you. I'm gonna hold that grudge. It's forgiveness. So God's people, it's practicing forgiveness even when we're scattered, the church scattered. When you're interacting with your kids, and by the way, if you're parents, you probably already know this. This is not as much of a news flash. But if you have kids, you're raising what sinners. And the odds are they might actually sin.
[00:37:09] There is that possibility.
[00:37:12] And if that's the case, they might actually do something that's wrong towards you.
[00:37:16] And if that's the case, you and I are called to what?
[00:37:20] Forgive them.
[00:37:22] Forgive them. You're raising. We're married to sinners. We're raising sinners. If you have friends, news flash, they're also sinners.
[00:37:30] Co workers, neighbors, all of those people.
[00:37:34] We are sinners. And there's going to be so many situations where you and I have the opportunity to give them the gift of forgiveness as we demonstrate the forgiveness of Christ in us.
[00:37:47] Now, there's somebody else that you may not run into that also might need forgiveness in your life.
[00:37:52] And it's those people that are no longer with you right now. Maybe it's a parent who's passed away. And for years you have been dealing with the hurt that they have caused you.
[00:38:01] Maybe it's a father or it's a mother, it's somebody else in your life. And you've been carrying the weight of unforgiveness for years. And it has changed your life in a significant way. You've been burdened with that, even maybe till today. You've been carrying the weight for decades of this thing, whatever this thing is, and it's been right here in front of your face. And so in order to do life, you've been doing life like this, right?
[00:38:27] This offense is here. You've never let it go. It's right there. And so you look at everything through the lens of the offense that somebody else has done to you from years prior. You're carrying the burden, if you will, of whatever that sin is.
[00:38:42] This is so important that you don't hold on to that because you're burdened with it. You're not experiencing the freedom that Jesus desires. And this oftentimes is where counseling can be incredibly helpful. One on one conversation with someone to help you know how to let that go, to hand that offense over to the Lord. It's not to say that what they did wasn't important, wasn't valuable. It doesn't say that you're not hurting, but it's to say, I'm no longer holding that against them, hoping that I can somehow Enact judgment.
[00:39:15] There's a phrase that some of you have heard, heard.
[00:39:19] I don't know where it came from, but it's this.
[00:39:21] Share the gospel and when necessary, use words. Okay, it sounds cool, right? It's wrong, not biblical. The gospel is good news. In order to say good news, you have to use words. All right, just having that out there. But as we come back to the subject of forgiveness, it's this. Share the gospel. And when rejected, when hurt, when offended, show the gospel through frequent forgiveness.
[00:39:46] When apologizing to someone for what we've done, we hope that they're going to forgive us.
[00:39:53] We desire that. Right? I'm sorry. I hope that you forgive me. And one of the reasons for some people, they may be resistant to showing forgiveness is because they haven't heard a good apology from someone.
[00:40:06] Any of you have been there before, right? I would like you to apologize the right way.
[00:40:11] Now, different people apologize different ways, and this is really helpful. So maybe write this down somewhere.
[00:40:16] There's five aspects to asking for forgiveness that can be incredibly helpful in restoring relationships, both in the church scattered and in the church gathered. So this will be our transition here to the next point. It's this. You can start with I'm sorry, which is great.
[00:40:33] Secondly, say what you're sorry for. For doing blank. So, for example, I'm going to use this as an example. I don't do this to people. I punch somebody in the face.
[00:40:43] Like I said, example, not real. First thing I'm going to say is, I'm sorry. Secondly, I'm going to say, for doing something. For doing what? Sorry for punching you in the face. Thirdly, I'm going to realize that it hurt them in some way. I'm sorry for punching you in the face. That must have really hurt your nose.
[00:41:00] Fourthly, you need to express that you're not going to try to do that again.
[00:41:06] You need to show that this is something that matters enough to you that you're willing to change the way you do whatever that portion of your life is. So, for example, I'm sorry for punching you in the nose. That must have really hurt you. Fourthly, I will do my best to not do that again by keeping my hands in my pocket.
[00:41:25] I'm going to tell you this is what I will do so that I don't hurt you again in this way. And then fifth, will you please forgive me? I'm asking now for the gift of forgiveness from this other person.
[00:41:41] Write this down somewhere. Forgiving frequently. Forgiving frequently is one of the most powerful Ways to demonstrate that the Gospel of Jesus has deeply and profoundly changed you.
[00:41:52] Let's look at the last point here.
[00:41:54] We've touched on it already throughout, and I know that the series seems like this is the focal point, but really, if we don't get everything else right, we're not going to get it right here. As the church gathered.4 the church gathered. A healthy church isn't made up of people who gather together and smile at each other and say all these nice things. In reality, we're doing ministry together, we're doing hard things together. We can study together, which is great, we're solving problems together.
[00:42:18] But we don't suddenly leave our flesh because we came to church. We still have a problem with pride. Any of you have a problem with pride? Sometimes. We have a problem with selfishness sometimes. And just because we're on the church property doesn't mean suddenly all of those things went away as the church gathered. We also must realize there is a part of us that needs to remember that we're in the flesh. And I might have the tendency. I might have the possibility of hurting someone and they might have the possibility of hurting me.
[00:42:46] Jesus says David Jeremiah. Pastor David Jeremiah says this. Jesus says that those who live by God's forgiveness must imitate it. A person whose only hope is that God will not hold his faults against him forfeits. Listen. Forfeits his right to hold others faults against them.
[00:43:06] You know this and I know this. Sometimes forgiving in the church can be harder than anywhere else.
[00:43:11] Why?
[00:43:12] Because maybe multiple reasons, but at least because we feel like they know better.
[00:43:18] You're a Christian, you read the Bible. You should know better. You shouldn't have hurt me in that way. Any of you know what I'm talking about here. It's one thing if my neighbor does who like, you know, totally doesn't worship Jesus or know anything about the Bible. It's one thing when they do it, or my co worker or my boss or something, but when somebody at church does it, that's so much harder, let alone somebody who's in a position of leadership, oh my goodness, so much.
[00:43:45] And I don't discount that in any way. I know that it is so much harder because when you know they know better and yet that still happened, it can hit you on a different level.
[00:43:56] Forgiving in the church space is hard, so, so hard.
[00:44:01] And yet the call, even the command to forgive as Christ does isn't suddenly dismissed because we're Christians against one Christian with another Christian. It's still a call to live up to delivering the message of the gospel through the act of forgiveness with one another. I want to summarize all this and ask two questions. We can fight peace by becoming retaliatory. We can fake peace by burying or denying our emotions. I'm not really hurt. It's not really a big deal.
[00:44:30] It's okay. They didn't really try to do it. We can try to mask it. We can fake it.
[00:44:36] But fighters and fakers take emotional control of the situation, saying, I have to do it myself. But we can truly make peace with whatever the fault is, whatever the offense is, by leaning into the Prince of Peace, who moves us to restore our lives and our relationships by being willing to say, that's why the cross is here.
[00:45:01] It's to show you that forgiveness is possible even in the relationship with a holy God and a sinful man. So two questions for you. One question is, have you embraced today the forgiveness of Jesus?
[00:45:14] He says, no matter what it is out there, I can forgive you. I'm stronger than whatever that is. Have you embraced the forgiveness of Jesus? It doesn't mean the consequences are gone. The consequences of sin. He says, I see your sin. I'm not lying about it. I see what it truly is. And yet I'm not going to hold that against you.
[00:45:34] Second question. Who do you need to forgive?
[00:45:38] Who do you need to forgive? At the top, I ask you to write down the name or consider a situation of a person that you have already forgiven. There might be somebody in your life right now that you have yet to forgive. Maybe you're holding onto that. Maybe that person has already passed away. Maybe that person is someone that you don't really see that often. They've moved somewhere else. Maybe that person is sitting next to you. I don't know.
[00:45:58] But who do you need to forgive today? It's not to say that your feelings don't matter. It's not to say that there doesn't need to be boundaries in place. But it's that situation where you're holding this thing right in front of your face and you can't see the world other than through the offense of somebody else. You can't see that person other than through the offense that they have done to you. And it's choosing to say this, I'm moving that away and I'm laying it at the cross of Jesus Christ so that I can see you for who you truly are through the eyes of Jesus.
[00:46:26] Put a definition back on the screen. If you didn't take a picture, you can Take a picture of it if you want. I won't spend a whole lot of time there, but I had said at the beginning also that there's some reading. If you'd like to go to the next slide, there's three books I would encourage you to pick up and read as you wrestle through or want to learn about what forgiveness actually looks like. These are not overviews, these are in depth stories that you can read through of people's lives who have walked through the story of forgiveness, walked through hard offenses in their life, and have chosen to say I want Jesus way of freedom so that I can experience a right relationship with the Lord and with other people. Let me pray and then we're going to move to a time of communion.
[00:47:05] Lord Jesus, we are so grateful for your incredible love for us. And it is through your love practice that we can experience forgiveness.
[00:47:12] Your love lived out is mercy, is grace.
[00:47:17] You are not a God who ignores our sin, rather one who sees it for what it really is.
[00:47:24] And yet you were willing to apply our sins to your son so that we could experience this gift of forgiveness.
[00:47:34] For those here today, Lord, who are thinking through this right now, maybe grievances, hardships that they have with others. Lord, I pray that you do the first incredible work of healing that only you can do.
[00:47:47] Help them to see your incredible love for them, your mercy and your grace that you show in each one of our lives. Lord, that you would help us to have the courage to have hard conversations with people and even experience what it's like to have restoration in places where there's broken relationships. Because of the gift of forgiveness that we can offer, we can offered. We thank you for the work that you're continuing to do in our lives.
[00:48:15] Thank you for your continual forgiveness for us. In Jesus name, amen.
[00:48:20] If you're helping with communion, you can get ready for that.
[00:48:23] Listen to A quote from C.S. lewis.
[00:48:26] To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.
[00:48:35] To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. In all of us there is this problem of sin, inexcusable because we are forgetful people. We've been called by the Lord to take part in what we call communion or the Lord's Supper.
[00:48:55] Jesus in the Last Supper before the cross, what he did was this very simply. He told his disciples, there's a new covenant, there's a new promise, and it's this forgiveness through me no longer do animals have to die to briefly cover your sins? No. Now, because of what I'm gonna do on the cross, your sins are not just covered for a moment. They're washed away, white as what?
[00:49:21] Snow? Cleansed.
[00:49:25] We have an incredible opportunity, an incredible opportunity to hold tightly to the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. A right view, a correct view of forgiveness starts with this.
[00:49:37] A holy God.
[00:49:39] We see this Isaiah in Isaiah 6. It says this, that heaven's open. And Isaiah, a prophet, he looks up into the throne room of heaven and he sees an incredibly holy God.
[00:49:50] Righteous, perfect. The train of his robe, it says, fills the temple. And the angels are shouting back, calling back and forth to each other, holy. Holy what?
[00:49:59] Holy is the Lord God Almighty. And after seeing this view, Isaiah has the right response. He falls face down, face down before the Lord. That is where we ought to be today. Face down before the Lord. And then, as we remember his forgiveness and his love for us, it's Jesus coming alongside, putting down his hand and raising us up and saying, I have made you right with me because of your faith in me, because of your trust in me.
[00:50:30] So because of his gracious work, we are able to come before the throne of God with confidence.
[00:50:36] Because of his kindness, he did the work of substituting himself. That's why we have the cross here, right? Jesus was the substitute for us. So as we take part in eating, drinking, there's grape juice that we have, a little wafer that we'll pass around. What we're doing is this. We're saying, I believe Jesus that you are a holy God, that you love me yet, a sinner. And you made me right with you because of your grace, because of your mercy. And I've trusted in you as my Lord and Savior. So if you're a Christian here today, take part in this. If you're not a Christian, if you've never trusted in Jesus, you're Lord and Savior, let the tray pass by you. And then the other question you need to ask yourself is, lord, are we in the right place here? Examine yourself first. Corinthians tells us we should examine ourselves.
[00:51:24] If you're not in the right place, you can let again the tray pass by you. As we pass the tray, encourage you to reflect on the faithful, loving kindness of our Lord, to remember the sacrifice of Jesus that brought about our forgiveness of sins. And thirdly, to rejoice, knowing that we can be right with him. Once the trays are passed and everyone has their elements, I'll come back up and I'll read a passage and we'll eat and drink together.
[00:52:03] Isaiah 53 says that surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, and upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds we are healed. In First Corinthians, chapter 11, it says this, verse 23. We're going to eat the wafer in just a moment. It says this, For I received from the Lord that which I delivered to you, the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, he took bread in your cups. You have a small wafer there.
[00:52:36] And when he had given thanks, he broke it. And he said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Let's eat together.
[00:52:47] We all, like sheep, have gone astray.
[00:52:49] We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
[00:52:57] Back to first Corinthians, it says this in the same way. He also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death. Until he comes, let's drink together.
[00:53:17] Amen.
[00:53:20] Lord, we rejoice.
[00:53:22] We proclaim your death until you come. And by proclaiming your death, we realize as your people today, that we are yours.
[00:53:28] We are held in your hand, we are redeemed.
[00:53:31] We are sons and daughters of the King.
[00:53:35] We are chosen by you, a royal priest, as your word says.
[00:53:40] And as we rejoice this morning, knowing that we are cleansed by you. And so as we sing this last song, as we do whatever is next in our life, Lord, help us to remember this incredible joy that we can have.
[00:53:52] Though it is a solemn time, as we remember your death, it also is a time to rejoice, to celebrate the joy of our salvation achieved by you in Jesus name, Amen.
