Forgiveness

Okay, so we're going to be reading from Matthew 6. Give you a couple seconds to turn there. If you have a Bible with you,

we're going to be starting in verse 9.

Pray then, like this, our Father in heaven, howlowed be your name, and then down to 12. And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. 14. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of God will stand forever. Let's pray together.

Father, thank you that you promised your spirit with us here tonight. Please flood this place with your spirit, cause new life in us. Thank you that if it were not for you acting first that we would not be here to even listen to your word. And God for our hearts to be changed, you have to be the one to act first. Would you please do that in us through Wes's words and through your spirit and Jesus name. Amen.

Whether it's dogs, whether it is a courtroom, whether it is certainly athletes or whether it's politicians, sometimes you will hear people say, I'm sorry, but very, very rarely will you hear people ask for forgiveness. You'll hear people apologize sometimes often, but very rarely do people actually ask for forgiveness, because forgiveness is very hard to ask for. But as we're going to talk about tonight, I think it's even harder to extend forgiveness to other people to forgive and to give forgiveness to others. Now we know as we think about tonight, we know that forgiveness is essential, relationally speaking, okay? But we find it incredibly hard to forgive other people. Instead, we keep a record of wrongs that people have committed against us. We often hold bitter and silent grudges towards people. And we lash out and revenge against them at the slightest provocation, much like that dog. We're quick to anger and we're slow to forgive. Whether the anger shows itself publicly in outbursts of rage or whether it's kind of a calm, quiet, simmering anger down in the deep cold recesses of our hearts. A lot of times, bitterness and anger is very close there relationally, even though we are called to forgive. Now in contrast to this, I want you to think back to last year when we saw the victim's family forgive someone after the shootings in Charleston. When that happened, when we had the mother of one of the victims publicly say to the man who shot her family to say, I forgive you, it was almost as if we as a culture and I saw this on the news, we didn't know what to do with that. We didn't even know really how to respond to her because forgiveness in our culture is so abnormal. Asking for forgiveness is just something you don't see very much in our culture. So we didn't know what to do with it because we as a culture, we as individuals live in this weird tension. When it comes to forgiveness, we know on one hand that we are supposed to be people who forgive, right? But on the other hand, we are so often people who are very reluctant to forgive and we just don't do it. We don't want to extend forgiveness to other people and there's a lot of reasons for that. We're going to see in just a few minutes, but before we go and dive into the word here and look at what God's word has to say about forgiveness, let's ask the Holy Spirit to help us tonight. Let's pray. Father, I pray that by your spirit tonight that you would help us, that you would encourage us, that you would challenge us, that you would convict us, we're necessary, but don't let us leave this place without seeing that Jesus is not just our example, he is also our substitute. He is also the one who died for us and died for the sins in the places where we are reluctant to forgive. Would you help us tonight to see Jesus? We pray these things in his name. Amen. There's an author who I have enjoyed over the past number of years, at times, and her name is Ann Lamott. I don't know if any of you all have ever read anything by her. And she said this, unforgiveness is like eating rat poison, expecting the rat to die. And her point, of course, is that unforgiveness, even though it seems right in the moment, only ends up doing damage to you. It only ends up killing you and killing your own heart and your own soul. And forgiveness is hard, folks, because what it means is absorbing someone's wrong against you. In fact, the Greek word here that's used for forgiveness comes from a word that means to let go. It is a release, it is a letting go of anger, of bitterness, of revenge, and even of avoidance. That's what forgiveness is. It's showing the same grace and forgiveness to others that God has shown to you in Jesus, all right? So here's what I want to do. I want to ask three questions of our text tonight and look at these things specifically. Here's the first question from verse 12. Why does forgiveness matter? Why does forgiveness matter? Look at verse 12 with me. It says this, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Now, of course, we know that that's part of the Lord's prayer. But here's the thing, when it comes to forgiveness, we sometimes exaggerate the offenses of other people and we minimize our own sin, right? That's the point of the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew chapter 18. So if we are unforgiving of others, it shows that we have not taken to heart the seriousness, if you will, of our own sin, okay? And what it means to receive God's forgiveness ourselves. So folks, here's the deal. The gospel of God's grace demolishes every reason you can think of for not forgiving other people. And Jesus is reminding us here of the importance of understanding first our own need of forgiveness, which is so important because of this reason. When I meditate on the forgiveness that God has shown me the cost of His mercy to me, then I'm prepared to forgive the person who hurt me. But I need to meditate first on how much God has forgiven me. See, the gospel reminds me that God is at peace with me through Jesus and what Jesus has done for me on the cross, okay? And so then out of that, God calls me to give peace to other people. And the gospel is what fuels our forgiveness and the Holy Spirit empowers our forgiveness. That's why for a number of years, in a lot of churches, there is a liturgy that's read before the Lord's Supper, where basically it says something to the effect of if you have something against your brother or your sister, you need to go and make things right before we come to the Lord's Supper and take communion together. It was meant to be in a sense a reminder to you that because God has given you His grace and His forgiveness, you must extend forgiveness and grace to other people as a result. So it was meant to be a reminder to us of His forgiveness. Look at verses 14 and 15 with me, says this, for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Okay, now this can be really confusing. All right, so hang with me here for just a second because this is important. This doesn't mean that forgiving others earns us the right to be forgiven. It does mean that one of the chief evidences of having been forgiven is the fact that you are willing and ready to forgive other people. Okay, in other words, those who understand that they have been forgiven readily forgive other people or to say it another way, the desire to forgive is one of the signs of having been forgiven. Okay, you see what Jesus is trying to say here? See, to forgive others is to show what God has done with you, to follow the example of Jesus who forgave his enemies even while he was dying on the cross for your sin and for my sin. See, folks, if you are a Christian, then you don't have the right to withhold forgiveness from anyone. You are called to forgive. In Ephesians 432, it says this, forgive each other just as in Christ, God forgave you. Okay, so that's the first question is why does forgiveness matter? Here's the second question. What does forgiveness look like practically? In other words, how do we do this? Okay, here's a few thoughts. This means forgiving even when the other person doesn't ask you for forgiveness. Okay, so when people wrong us, we're to forgive them, whether they ask for it or not, to let go of our anger, of our bitterness, of our resentment towards them. In other words, you don't continue to hold a grudge against them. You let it go. Okay, forgiveness means I'm giving up my right as it were to make you pay for what you've done. You were intentionally and willingly saying, I am giving up my right to make you pay for what you've done and how you've hurt me. Okay, it means that you're letting go. Now of course, sometimes you're going to get a half-hearted apology, right? Sometimes you might get someone who very reluctantly says, yeah, I'm sorry, blah blah blah, but you could tell they don't really mean it, but here's the thing. There's a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness takes one person, reconciliation takes two, but you individually are called to forgiveness regardless of if that person is, gives you a half-hearted apology or not, you're still called to forgiveness. Okay, here's another way that forgiveness looks practically. It means asking for forgiveness, taking the initiative with someone when you know that you've hurt them. Okay, not waiting on them to come to you. Folks, we are called to seek peace with our roommates, our friends, our family, etc., and if you know that you have offended someone else, you need to go to them and ask forgiveness of them, not wait on them to come to you and tell you that you've hurt them. Okay, here's another idea. Forgiveness means saying, actually saying, I forgive you. Why is that so important? Because in the South, we say things like this a lot. We say, that's okay, or we say something like, don't worry about it. Okay, but it focuses a big deal. Because in relationships, we need to not overlook what has happened, not cover up what has happened, not ignore what has happened. Those things need to be voiced so that they can be forgiven, completely and fully and totally, so that we could say, I am letting that go. I forgive you. Okay, that's super important. Another thing, because the gospel is true, we can grieve over the loss of what the other person has done to you. You don't have to seek revenge. You can live with open hands, because the gospel is true and we serve a God who will one day fully and completely enact justice in every way. And because that's true, we can forgive, all right? And finally, here's another idea. Know that forgiveness is a long process. Okay, it's not always just some event. It's usually a long process, particularly when the wounds are deep, all right? Forgiveness is a process that takes a long time, especially when there has been cases of abuse or neglect or cheating or desertion or things like that. Folks, forgiveness is hard. And the more someone has hurt you, the harder it is to forgive them. But we could still forgive, because God has forgiven us in Jesus, and that is what enables us to forgive other people. Third question, I want to ask of this text tonight. Okay, so what's the result of forgiveness? What happens when you do forgive? Okay, well, when you do forgive others, this brings affection, patience, unity, and the body of Christ. In relationships, forgiveness becomes a profound testimony to the gospel of Jesus. It points people in effect to Jesus. Have you ever thought about the fact that forgiveness is actually one of the most evangelistic things you could possibly do? Because it points people to the gospel. It points people to Jesus, okay? Now, again, forgiveness is very difficult. It's very difficult, but we are called to it, not in our own strength, but in the strength that the Holy Spirit provides for us and the fuel that we are given in the gospel. I don't know how many of y'all have seen. There's a documentary called As We Forgive. I don't know if any of y'all have seen this as a few years old, but it's about two Rwandan Christian women named Rosaria and Chantal who come face to face with the men who slaughtered their families in the 1994 genocide that happened. And the question that you're asking as someone who's watching the movie is this, could you forgive a person who murdered your family? And there's kind of this build-up to when these women finally meet the people who literally slaughtered not just their family, but they left their entire towns in a bloodbath. And so it's a movie about Christian forgiveness. It's the story of these two women moving from death to life through forgiveness. Up until this point, their lives were almost paralyzed with bitterness and resentment and anger. And I think this documentary does an amazing job of showing how forgiveness finally releases them to go and to begin to live once again. Because what they found is that the answer to all the blood that was shed, all the anger, all the hurt, all the pain, the answer was not and it never could be revenge. The answer was always forgiveness and letting go and pointing to the gospel of Jesus. And I thought that was such a great portrayal of exactly what Jesus is trying to say here. So here's a couple questions for you tonight. What if the Holy Spirit enabled you to taste a fresh, the grace of God to you in the gospel, to see how much he has forgiven in you, to the point that you would become someone who would readily and graciously forgive other people just as he has already forgiven you in Jesus. So that too, that you would become someone who was transformed by that grace and forgiveness of others became the overflow of God's forgiveness of you. Folks, I know that a lot of y'all are struggling to forgive people in your lives, whether it's friends, roommates, family, ex-boyfriends, girlfriends, I don't know, but all of us struggle at times to forgive people. And what I would say to you is if that's where you are tonight, then what this text is calling you to do is to go to the Lord about it and pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help you forgive that person. And then you do it. You forgive them. You choose to let them go. You choose to release the anger and the hurt and the bitterness and to let it go and point to the gospel of Jesus in that way. Let it be the overflow of the grace that God has shown to you in the gospel. See, folks, our fierce determination to forgive shows how deeply the gospel lives in us. But remember here, as always, that Jesus isn't just your example, Jesus is your Savior. So in the places where you are deeply struggling to forgive, in the places where you are finding a lot of bitterness and resentment in your own heart, I would encourage you to remember that even in those very places, God has given you His grace. He has given you His mercy in the gospel of Jesus. Go to the Lord in prayer out of thankfulness for His grace, but ask Him to help you to live with open hands rather than clinch this, to let it go, to let that person go, to willingly and joyfully forgive them in pointing to the gospel of Christ. I want to close with this verse from Colossians chapter 3, verse 13. As the Lord has forgiven you, so also you must forgive. Friends, this is a real challenge in the Sermon on the Mount. Forgiveness goes against the grain of everything that is natural to us, but we are called to it. Trust the Holy Spirit to provide the grace that you need to forgive and pursue it. Let's pray. The Father of this passage in particular is difficult, and it is certainly convicting because all of us can think of people in our own hearts and lives who we struggle to forgive. Lord, we want to hang on to that bitterness and that resentment and that anger, even in subtle ways, we want that person to pay for how they've heard us. But I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would transform those places in our hearts and instead, would you give us grace that we might instead extend forgiveness out of the overflow of the forgiveness that you have given us in Jesus? We need your help desperately in this area. There is no way possible in our own strength that we can do this. We just can't. And so I pray that you would help us. Would you empower us to be people who readily forgive and point to Jesus? We pray these things in His name. Amen.