Let's turn to the Matthew chapter 6 and the sermon on the mount one of the pastors asked me this past week He said if you bet he said if this is always a load of questions Have you been preparing your sermons differently lately and I said well what's that supposed to mean and he said Well, he said they're just different. I he said no They're always good But he said these particular sermons have really been impacting my family. I said oh, that's easy It's a subject matter I'm preaching through the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever preached Sermon on the mount And although the Sermon on the mount is not it may be hard for us to accept this It's not any more or less inspired than Then you're the person of scripture But you would agree with me that if you compare and say Isaiah in the Old Testament and the Psalms of David and say Obediah That Isaiah would be more important for us Than say Obediah Now Obediah is just as inspired as Isaiah But his prophecy doesn't carry the weight that Isaiah does And likewise the Psalms teach us to worship and Paul teaches us how to be a Christian in his epistles but what David and Paul write are not quite as essential as what Jesus Christ preaches Jesus Christ is giving us in the Sermon on Mount what Dietrich Bondhofer called the essence of Christianity was Listening to the Sermon on the Mount preached at an African-American church in Harlem That was the instrument God used to convert Dietrich Bondhofer and make him a Christian and And so Jesus Christ the only preacher in all of human history able to look into the human soul and know exactly what we're thinking of what we need Preaches this remarkable Sermon and of course it's going to have an impact on our life and it's going to be radically different From anything else in the rest of the Bible although complimentary to it As we work ourselves through this Sermon, let's remember the outline because as we go deeper into the Sermon the outline becomes more and more important to understand exactly what Jesus Christ is saying He starts out with an introduction called the Beatitudes Where sinclair Ferguson says Christ tells us not what we are to do to get into the king of God But what happens to us when the king of God comes upon us people from all different backgrounds With different kinds of spiritual needs and different kinds of personalities share one thing in common They are blessed in a surprising manner when the kingdom of God invites them to Christ and they enter into a saving relationship with him Then the first point after the introduction is what William Hendrickson calls the six great antithesis Where Jesus Christ talks about living in the spirit of the law rather than the letter of legalism You have heard it said, but I say six times he cast forth this antithesis between what he really said in the Old Testament and what was interpreted by the rabbis Then the third section or the second point actually the third section with the second major point is about our religious life It is about our piety kingdom piety. It's about prayer and Almsgiving and fasting and we'll find out this morning forgiveness It's what Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones says is a a double-thronged exhortation how to live with God in our religious life and how to live with other men in God's world and That's what section we're in now. We're coming to the end of it We're coming to the end of his second point his section about kingdom piety Where Jesus Christ tells us this is how I want you to relate to God and as kind of an extrapolation of that How you should live with one another and at the very end of this section He says an almost shocking thing in chapter 6 verses 14 and 15 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 heavenly father forgive your trespasses Now keep in mind Just two verses prior to this he taught us to pray and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors We pray for forgiveness and we get forgiveness We pray for forgiveness Jesus says so we can grant forgiveness 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 These are perhaps the most controversial and most contested of all the verses in the Sermon on the Mount So much so that there are a number of commentaries that simply choose not to deal with them. They just pass over them And those that do deal with them struggle to do so Dei Carson says is Jesus giving us some tit for tat arrangement here Do I forgive Johnny and then the Lord forgives me Indeed so that the Lord will forgive me But what then do the very explicit conditions of chapter 6 verses 14 and 15 mean That's what we want to look at this morning What does Jesus mean when he says if you don't forgive you won't be forgiven If you do then God will forgive you Well these two verses are seeking I think to teach us Three things Because all these things are related to forgiveness What is the essence or the nature of grace What is the nature of repentance And what is the nature of conversion Jesus is basic saying this loved ones If we know grace If we've then experienced repentance and have been converted we will be forgiving people But if we don't understand grace and we've never repented of our sins and we've not been converted Then we won't know how to forgive And Obviously we won't be forgiven So let's look at these three things first of all the nature of grace Jesus is pointing in these two verses to the radical nature of grace Something that we have I must say in our age sanitized For us grace is one of three things. It's a state. It's a condition. We talk about living in the state of grace So now like you arrive at grace and then you just kind of stew in it you just Bade in this warm jacuzzi of God's favor This comfortable condition of grace or we've made it something static Something of a thing Something of a commodity a divine mystical stuff That we can get more of when we need it and let it go when we don't Or we've made it sterile It becomes an excuse For our sins how many times have your children been disciplined How many times if you had something difficult come into your life and it's obviously the discipline of a little order It's some result of your center. It's some reaction by people to some negative thing you've done And you're feeling sorry for yourself and you say well, where's the grace
some sterile excuse Why don't you just let this go? Why don't you just forget my sentiment? Where's the grace? And that's not at all what Jesus is talking about Or Paul for that matter Or the prophets when they talk about the grace of God The Bible never intended for grace to be static To be sterile or to be some state of condition For God in the Bible Grace is the life of God in the soul of a man. It is an incredible power When God thinks of grace He thinks not of some state of grace but a way of life A gospel way of life a new way of relating to God and man and sin and salvation And it's not a thing. I know it's cute to say that grace is God's riches at Christ expense But it's much much more than that It is the power of God to say for I am not ashamed of the gospel Paul said It is the power of God for a salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the grief for by grace You have been saved His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life And God that is through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he is granted to us his precious And very great promises that through them we may become partakers of the divine nature Having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of our lusts according to Paul and to Peter Grace is the power of God to do mighty things and it's not sterile It has a tremendous transforming power where grace goes into a person things never remain the same Paul would write to Titus and said for the grace of God as appeared Bringing salvation to all men Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in this present age For the grace of God has appeared Paul said and transformed us into Ungodly worldly Self-focused people to be a people who are zealous for good works ready to live for God Grace can never be separated from the third person of the Holy Trinity Grace is nothing more than the The byproduct of the Holy Spirit's presence in our souls We don't have grace until the Holy Spirit enters us and if the Holy Spirit should ever leave us grace would go with him There is no grace given to us whatsoever apart from the work of the Holy Spirit and his word Jesus said it is the spirit who gives life the flesh profits nothing the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life He would promise the apostles you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you Paul would write to the Romans May the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit You may abound in hope Grace is that power of the Holy Spirit living within us that causes us to be born again To come alive to God To become new creatures and to be transformed from the inside out There is nothing greater and more powerful in the world than the Holy Spirit and his grace nothing Not even our sins Miss Julia Johnston wrote this this famous hymn that celebrated the essence of grace's power Over our sin wonderful grace of Jesus greater than all my sin How shall my tongue describe it where shall its praise begin Taking away my burden setting my spirit free for the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me Wonderful the matchless grace of Jesus deeper than the mighty rolling sea Higher than the mountains broader than the scope of my transgressions greater than all my sin in shame I magnify the precious name of Jesus and praise his name Let me ask you a question how can such grace How can such a Holy Spirit How can the third person of the Godhead come and live in you and me and things don't change How's that possible I in other words How could grace come into our lives And we remain people who are unforgiving
James boy says This grace will involve our attitude towards other people For we shall not expect the fullness of God's forgiveness towards us according to Jesus Unless we extend the same forgiveness to those who have wronged us grace Grace God's grace grace that will pardon and cleanse within Grace grace God's grace a grace that is greater than all my sin I'll tell you how important this is Jesus told a parable about this and I'd like you to turn to it You'll find it in Luke chapter 7 It's my favorite story in my favorite gospel. It is the most tender story. I think in all of the Bible It's about Jesus having suffered a Pharisee's house and a woman full of sin and shame Comes to Christ for cleansing Luke chapter 7 beginning in verse 36 One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him and he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at table And behold a woman in the city who was a sinner when she learned that he was reclining at table and the Pharisee's house brought an alabaster flask of ointment and standing behind him at his feet weeping She began to wet his feet with the tears and wiped him with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment Now in the Pharisee who had invited him saw this he said to himself If this man were a prophet he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who was touching him for she is a sinner Jesus answering said to him Simon I have something to say to you And he answered say it teacher a certain money letter had two debtors One owed him five hundred denarii and the other fifty When they could not pay he canceled the debt of both Now which of them will love him more Simon answered the one I suppose for whom he counseled the larger debt And he said to him you have judged rightly now let me let me pause there and tell you what a denarius is A denarius in Jesus Christ date was the the common wage of the common labor for one day's work So it would be minimum wage for us Which in North Carolina is seven dollars and twenty five cents or fifty eight dollars a day So here two slaves that owe the master money The first slave owes him in present-day dollars Twenty nine thousand four hundred dollars the second slave owes him two thousand nine hundred and forty dollars and he forgives them both Which one will love him the most? Well Simon said correctly the one who had twenty nine thousand dollars for given Jesus went on in this story Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon do you see this woman? I added your house and you gave me no water for my feet She has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair You gave me no kiss but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment Therefore I tell you her sins which are many are forgiven For she loved much But he who is forgiven little loves little And he said to her your sins are forgiven Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves. Who is this who even forgives sins And he said to you and your faith has saved you Go in peace Here's a little story about the extravagant power of grace and forgiveness Grace that somehow changed this immoral woman we assume Into someone who was repentant and grateful But Simon was unchanged You know why because Simon figured that all he owed God was $2,940 and he can handle that himself But this woman realized that her debt was beyond her ability to pay There was nothing she could do The only thing she could have recourse to was the grace of God to transform her life And it did Her faith in God's grace saved her Not so with Simon Sin Clair Ferguson says that Jesus mean that our reception of forgiveness is determined by our granting of forgiveness That might seem to contradict the rest of the New Testament Yet Jesus does stress that without our forgiveness of others There can be no forgiveness from God Why? Because the first thing grace does when it enters our soul chronologically speaking the first thing it does Is it brings with it the evangelical gift of repentance The first fruit of grace is repentance That's why John the Baptist when he was preaching all we said bring for fruits and keeping with repentance He didn't say with faith He said with repentance Atturning away from your sin and Atturning then in faith to God through Jesus Christ. So here's the second thing that Jesus Christ is emphasizing Not just the radical nature of grace, but the radical nature of repentance For if you forgive others of 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 We could rephrase that and not be any further from the truth if we said If you repent of your sins You will be forgiven But if you will not receive the repentance of someone else How legitimate is your repentance That's what Jesus Christ is emphasizing your John Stott says This certainly does not mean that our forgiveness of others earns for us the right to be forgiven It is rather that God forgives only the penitent And the one who is penitent the chief evidence is a forgiving spirit Jesus Christ is saying When repentance comes There's always a godly sorrow and remorse over sins not because of the difficulty It's caused me but what it has done to God and others And there's always a confession of sin to God and to others We go and begin to ask people's forgiveness for the things we've done especially beginning with God And there's the desire to forgive others because we have been forgiven It's what one old Puritan called a holy shame Then we are shamed before God because of our sins and we repent and go and ask him for forgiveness And then we're ashamed not to give somebody else forgiveness because of all the forgiveness we just got That is the mark of repentance a holy shame I am ashamed not to forgive you for sinning against me because God has forgiven me All my sins against him What is the evidence of an impenitent spirit Someone who doesn't have repentance holding grudges Holding on to anger Nursing wounds and wrongdoings and grievances Feeling sorry for ourselves when caught in sin Doing what gets us out of trouble and only the minimum that'll do that Refuse it to forgive other people making excuses Wining where's the grace when it's the grace of God Paul says that leads you to repentance Michael green says It's not a matter of fact that Jesus won't forgive us if we don't forgive others he cannot He cannot forgive those who are unrepentant And the proof of repentance is forgiveness I'm not just saying this I'm not just making Jesus tells another story A more amazing parable in Matthew chapter 18 about this thing of grace and forgiveness and repentance turn there Matthew 18 verse 23 He's talking about How amazing it is for a sinner Not to be repentant towards God And to be unforgiving of others Matthew 18 Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king Who wish to settle accounts with his servants When he began to settle one was brought to him but owed him 10,000 talents And since he could not pay his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children And all that he had in payment to be made So the servant fell on his knees employing him Have patience with me and I will pay you everything And out of pity for him the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt But when that same servant went out he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii And seizing him he began to choke him saying pay what you owe And so his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him have patience with me and I will pay you He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt And when his fellow servants saw what had taken place they were greatly distressed And they went and reported to their master all that had taken place Then his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you And had anger his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart This parable is stunningly amazing It doesn't mean a whole lot to us because what in the world is a talent? I'm going to tell you what a talent is Are you ready for this? Don't write this down A talent is 3,000 checkles And a checkle is half an ounce So one talent is 1,500 ounces And those 1,500 ounces are either of gold or silver talents are always measured in gold or silver one or the other Now in a pound of gold or a pound of silver would have 16 ounces We have what's called Troy ounces there are 12 Troy ounces to a pound of silver or gold Today a toy pound of gold as a Friday Is worth $16,310 and 37 cents so for example When Michael Phelps got eight gold medals each one weighing 22 pounds The total value of his eight gold medals is 2,820,625 They are valued at $358,825 a piece So one talent of gold today is worth 2,038,783 But the man didn't owe the boss one talent he owed him 10,000 He owed that man $20,387,830 and some change
If it was in silver he still owed him $162,300,000 And what did his fellow servant owe him $5,800 Now here's the story you know what it means When someone does you wrong and you just can't forgive them You are not forgiving mere spiritual pocket change Pocket change But if I add up all your sins And put the calculator to them You owe God an excess of $20 billion worth of hell
How can you possibly pay that back
And God has said to your irretrievable debt It is forgiven It counts no more How can you and I then turn around When someone does his some little human offence And say well I just can't forgive you We would only do that If we lacked repentance
Because the impenetant person never really calculates How much he owes God He's always thinking of what other people have done wrong to him The number one reason we cannot forgive Is because we are impenetant We've never been broken By the massive weight of our debt We don't realize all that Jesus did When on the cross for you and for me and for every other person in the world he said Their debts have been paid in full
And so we harbor pennies worth of grievances While we are forgiven billions of debt To Almighty God And that is probably because Many of us are not converted These things flow logically The first fruit of grace is always repentance And repentance is 50% of conversion When Paul talks about conversion In the book of Acts When the author of Hebrews talks about conversion In Hebrews chapter 6 They said that we preach to you repentance from sin And faith in our Lord Jesus Christ Every seminarian in the first month of systematic theology learns the formula for conversion It is repentance from sin And faith in God towards our Lord Jesus Christ Repentance in faith are the two things that come when we are converted And they usually come in that order Repentance first and faith second Luis Burkhov says a twofold definition must be given of conversion First an active conversion is that by which God Causes the regenerated center in his conscious life To turn to him in repentance and faith And secondly Passive conversions is the resulting conscious act of a regenerated center whereby through the grace of God He turns to God in repentance and in faith It's not a one way street It is the the act of God's grace alone but it always is ricochet back God gives us the gifts of repentance and faith And we respond in repentance and faith and we are converted And that is what Jesus Christ is emphasizing here Salvation rests not on human merit or human accomplishments or even the ability or willingness to forgive other people But salvation always brings forth fruit and the first fruit for those who are forgiven Is there willingness even their eagerness to forgive other people that's the whole story of the prodigal son The boy goes off and he squanders everything But he comes to his senses the scripture says literally in Greek. He comes to a mind And he begins to think the word for repentance in Greek is metanoia Meta change and noose the mind metanoia is a changing of mind. I changed my mind about myself I changed my mind about my circumstances. I'm no longer a victim No, I'm the one who chose to go live in the pig pen Where's the grace of God? I say it's back in the father's house And I stop whining About what a missable life I have And I say I will get up and go to my father and I will say to him in this act of repentance Father, I'm not worthy to be called your son But if you will simply treat me like a hired hand that's good enough for me Well, we know the story The story Has an almost happy ending The boy goes back and the father says no I will never treat you like a hired hand You are my son And here's my robe and here's my ring and here's the feast to tell people My son was lost, but now he's found he was dead in sin God brought him alive But the older brother is unconverted And he just can't forgive
The reason why we find it hard to forgive is because most of us are halfway converted Of course in fairness to you We've only done what the preachers told you to do To put your faith in Jesus Christ and ask God into your heart That's faith They never mentioned repentance You know why when you're preaching at a crusade when you're giving an altar call at the end of a sermon when you're on a campus And you're talking to somebody who's a raw, unconverted and unconvicted sinner The last thing they want to hear is about repentance They'd like to hear about a free ride to heaven if they just pray a prayer and ask Jesus into their heart And so they do They pray the prayer that you give them to pray at the end of the track They ask Jesus in their heart and they go off and live hell-bent for themselves and for anyone else And there's no change in their life They're just as angry and bitter and vicious and sinful as they've always been because they did not take the first step They did not repent you didn't tell them to Would we have fewer converts if we told them to repent you bet we would But look at the converts we've got now They're not changed at all They're just people who pray at a prayer Went through a religious exercise and that is why they are both unforgiving and Unforgiven listen to how they talk The Bible does not require me to forgive people who never ask for forgiveness Yes, it does I may have to forgive someone, but I don't have to forget what they've done Yes, you do I may be forced to forgive them, but I don't have to love them Oh, yes, you do And I don't have to forgive other people in order to be forgiven Yes Yes, you do That's what Jesus says 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 Paul reminds us of this great truth when he says to Titus For we ourselves are once foolish disobedient Let us stray slaves to various passions and pleasures Passing our days in malice and envy Hated by others and hating one another But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared He saved us Not because of works done by us in righteousness But according to his own mercy By the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit Who me poured out on us richly Through Jesus Christ our Savior Did you hear that description? Before we were converted we were hated and hating one another But when the loving kindness and goodness of God appeared We changed The Holy Spirit renewed us and washed us clean Christ did come into our lives through repentance and faith And we were finally able to say Two things to God Father Thank you I am forgiven and to those who wronged us You too are forgiven I forgive you Go your way Your faith has made you well Adia B. Pink says our forgiveness of others is a mark Assigned that we ourselves have been pardoned by God And where the grace of God has wrought this miracle in the human heart Gracious this is the inevitable effect Reconciliation with God is made manifest by conciliatory spirit Towards our fellow sinful man This is what Jesus is pointing to He's saying that the proof of grace That is powerfully entered your soul is that you forgive other people The proof that you have the evangelical gift of repentance That you've turned from sin is that you forgive others who ask you for forgiveness The evidence that you're converted Is that you are a forgiving person This sounds strange to us In fact, it sounds rather unreformed And that is why this morning I quoted a German Theologian Two people from the reformed faith who rode hymns And nine reformed pastors theologians and scholars And they all testify that there is no easy way around this That this is what grace does It enables us to stop whining in our condition start making us uses Blaming other people holding grudges being angry sharpening the sword And to ask God for forgiveness and forgive other people
If those guys aren't enough Here's the big gun John Calvin himself God will not be ready to hear us unless we also show ourselves ready to grant forgiveness to those who have offended us If we are not harder than iron this exhortation ought to soften us And render us disposed to forgive offenses Unless God pardons us every day of our many sins We know that we were ruined in innumerable ways And on no other condition does he admit us to pardon But that we pardon our brethren whatsoever offenses they have committed against us Those who refuse to forgive the injuries which have been done to them devote themselves willingly and deliberately to destruction And knowingly prevent God from ever forgiving them
These are sober words This may be the hardest thing Jesus says in the sermon on the Mount in my opinion But here's the good news Here's the good news The unforgivable sin is not an unforgivable spirit God can forgive you for not forgiving other people If you ask him If you came before him this morning Brothers and sisters and you said father This is a mark of my life. I'm a grudge holder I have this latent anger that boils Out and over into people's lives I never forget an offense I've got a list of people I want you to get I'm a spiteful person at times I need you to come into my life and change me He will He will He will take you once again to the cross To the foot of that shaft And remind you that at one time You owed to him in massive excess of 20 billion dollars worth of sin And he wiped it all out to zero Because Jesus paid it all for you
And now He offers you grace A grace that come into your life Perhaps convert you for the first time Give you the gifts of repentance toward God In faith in Jesus Christ A grace that can make you let things go Things that are inconspicuous just let them go And things are important to go and reconcile Not so you can tell them one more time how much they hurt you But so you can tell them one more time how much God loves them And you forgive them I think that there is no greater statement in the human language Any language than the words I forgive you There's nothing more marvelous than that And there's nothing more central to the gospel than the words I forgive you Unforgiveness Is not unforgivable But the refusal to ask the Holy Spirit To give you the grace to do so Is unforgivable That is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit There are a lot of people in this room today Who need to be forgiven I think maybe Every one of us And there are even as many people Who need to learn how to forgive
But we can't do the second Unless we've experienced the first It's only when we've repented Receive the grace of God been converted that we are forgiven And then we are able to forgive others The great doctor of this whole Jesus Christ Has surgically sliced into your heart this morning He's asking you to assess The measure of your own eternal life
Do you possess grace Do you know repentance Have you been converted And are you willing to say to someone else today I forgive you Let's pray Father I think the hardest thing for us to do is human beings is to forgive In fact You have told us elsewhere in the scripture that unless your Holy Spirit works in us and transforms us We will never forgive So that Jesus is correct to say If we are not willing to forgive other people it is proof that we are not forgiven
The only thing that can rectify that is your saving grace There are people here this morning who are unconverted They don't know what it is to experience Christ They don't know what it is to believe in Him alone They certainly don't know what it is to turn away from sin And therefore they need the Holy Spirit to plunge into their souls deeply this morning in a radically life-changing way There are others here who maybe halfway converted as we've said this morning They are trusting in Christ. They've just never dealt with repentance And I ask that you would complete their salvation this morning and give them an assurance of their salvation, a peace that surpasses all of their understanding As you guard their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus and give them the gift of repentance And there are others who are converted But they have slipped into the the ease of downplaying the load of their debt and exaggerating what others have done to them And therefore they are unforgiving in certain relationships And harbor the bitter fruit of resentment which is poisoning their faith and their souls There's nothing this world needs more than your forgiveness And nothing we need to give to one another more than your forgiveness We can only do that by the living and abiding power of the Holy Spirit So spirit of the living God fall afresh upon us Make us penitent grace filled transform people who are forgiven and able to forgive And do this for our sake sake of our world And for the sake of Jesus Christ the great forgiveer and whose name we pray Amen