Luke 17:3-4

Lord, we um we just thank you for Scott.

Bless him.

He's looking for work this week.

He's getting established in the city.

Um, everything that relates to him of just moving to a new place and getting settled, um, building new relationships.

Lord, we pray that you would bless Scott in that.

Thank you for this crazy step of faith that he's taken to move from the Bible college in Marietta, um, where he had just um a campus and he had friendships.

Lord, he's left a lot of things to come here and serve Baltimore City.

And I pray, Lord, that this would just be a rich experience for him, that you would add to his life, that you would build him up in his faith and encourage him as a man of God.

Thank you for his parents and just their ministry, that they are also missionaries, Lord, down in Key West.

Bless them, Lord.

And as they just have invested in their son and they've given him to us for a season, Lord, we pray that this would just be, it would be of you, that Scott would bear fruit for your kingdom.

And Lord, would you work on behalf of Nick and Zuki?

Lord, um, from man's perspective, from our perspective, this is a lot that they're undertaking.

It's a challenge, it's difficult, and we ask that you would um you'd open up doors, give them the right apartment, even the ones I'm going to look at today for them.

Lord, just guide the the process.

Give them peace, Lord, incredible peace.

Uh bless their wedding.

Um provide them with work once they arrive here.

Lord, we we just uh commit them to you that um you would you would work on their behalf and that they would be blessed.

And we ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Okay, Luke 17, 3 through 4 says this.

So watch out for yourselves.

If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them, and if they repent, forgive them.

Even if they sin against you seven times in a day, and seven times come back to you saying, I repent, you must forgive them.

We're only going to do those two verses, because that in and of itself is crazy.

Amen?

That's like a crazy instruction.

This is a challenging instruction that Jesus gives to his disciples.

For those of you that have been with us for 10 chapters, going back to chapter 9, Jesus has been specifically investing in his disciples and training them.

A bunch of lessons have have come up as we've gone through these ten chapters, and we're heading towards chapter 19 when Jesus arrives in, Jesus arrives in Jerusalem.

So I wanted to slow down and look at forgiveness this morning and make sure that we are really understanding this.

In fact, we're gonna do something I don't think we've ever done, or we haven't done, at least since we've been in this building.

I'm gonna teach for uh 25, I'm gonna try to teach for 25 minutes, and then I'm gonna try to leave 10, 15 minutes for Q ⁇ A.

Because this is gonna it it forgiveness um between our culture and what the Bible teaches, it's a difficult thing to understand, um, and it can cause all kinds of um problems as we try to work this out in our own lives.

Well, how do I how do I forgive?

Okay, so here's where we're going.

Four things.

What is forgiveness?

Why should we forgive, how forgiveness works, and some objections to forgiveness.

Let's keep in mind again, Jesus is training his disciples on what it looks like to live in community.

Jesus is forming a new community.

So when people come and they follow Jesus, they are joining a new community, right?

So the horizontal or like the vertical relationship with God is a huge deal.

You get your relationship with God squared away, but all of a sudden you're now in relationship with people around you.

Some of you live in tight-knit communities.

My favorite tight-knit community in our area here is Perkins and Douglas.

If you go over there, you see people that know each other really well.

So I don't live in Perkins or Douglas.

I live in a neighborhood right up here, and I'll tell you, the people over in Perkins and Douglas know each other a lot better than I know my neighbors.

They're outside, they're talking to each other now, and not all the interaction is positive.

Sometimes you get on each other's nerves, but there is a sense of knowing one another better over there in those communities.

Some of you live in Lemco, and some of you are here.

And the reason you're here is because like one person came from Lemco, and then you're like you told your friend, and then that friend came, and then another friend came, and you guys live in community.

Well, when we become Christians, when we follow Jesus, we're brought into God's community, God's family.

Jesus uses the term kingdom of heaven, like we're brought into God's kingdom.

Another term that Jesus uses is family.

We're brought into a new family, and then another term is the church, right?

So we have a relationship with one another, and Jesus is training future leaders, future followers on how to relate to one another.

Last week we saw that it's better to experience an early death rather than cause another person in the family of God to stumble.

That's this whole idea of have that millstone tied around your neck.

It's a really extreme example that Jesus says, and he says, look, offenses are gonna come, but woe to the one through who they come.

Now we've got to deal with forgiveness.

So you'll notice that in verse 3, if your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them, and if they repent, forgive them.

So we'll spend most of our time on forgiveness, but you've got to first see in the text that Jesus is saying that sin is real, and the first step is to rebuke it, right?

That means that you verbally call it out and you say, hey, that's wrong, right?

Some of you maybe have a background in masonry where you're building a wall, and there's this instrument that you use when you're building a wall that's called a plumb line.

It's basically a heavy weight and a string that's dangled off of it.

And what do you do with that tool?

You hold it up against the wall you're building to make sure that the wall is straight up and down, right?

So when we rebuke somebody, we're coming alongside of them and we're saying, your life is not straight up and down.

It doesn't line up with the standard of God's word.

So, I don't have this in my notes, but um uh it's important that when we identify sin, that it's not just something that bothers us personally and rubs us the wrong way, but it's an identifiable sin.

In other words, it's something that violates God's law and the principles of God's law, right?

So if you're the guy that's like going around rebuking people because they just bother you, you're not really doing what Jesus said.

This is rebuking a sin, and sin is a violation of God's law.

Now, let's look at what is forgiveness.

Here is the Old Testament, some some points from the Old Testament definition of forgiveness.

First of all, there's three words that are used in the Old Testament to define sin, or that are translated sin.

The first one carries this idea of atonement.

It is used in connection with the sacrifices that uh the Israel uh the Hebrew community did.

Remember, they'd go into the tabernacle and offer sacrifices, and atonement would be made.

The second idea is this idea of lifting something or carrying it away.

In Israel's history or in their worship practice, there would be a scapegoat, and this was the idea of taking an animal, placing your hand on its head, and this animal would not be sacrificed.

Instead, it would be let it would be sent out into the wilderness.

It would be sent away.

And that is part of the also another word that is that is translated forgiveness in the Old Testament.

It means to lift or carry away.

And then the third word is just translated forgiveness.

It maybe has to do somewhat with the idea of pardoning a debt.

And then when we get over to the New Testament, there are four Greek words that are used a total of 69 times to convey the concept of forgiveness.

Now, we're going to go through these slides really fast.

So if you're trying to take notes, you're going to be frustrated with me.

So what I'll do is I'll do what I did last week is I will take these notes, I'll turn them into a PDF, and I'll stick them up on Slack.

If you're not on Slack, maybe I'll create a blog post out of it as well so that you can grab it off the website.

Because there's no way for me to do this in 25 minutes and uh you to write that fast.

Okay?

Four Greek words.

Let's work on a definition.

Okay, this is this is my definition.

I uh there's um a lot of different ways that you can define um forgiveness.

Some are a lot of them are faulty, right?

So I read 15 commentaries this week, and I didn't like any of them.

So I I I've created my own.

Um, and I'm gonna try to defend my own as we go along.

First is the idea of pardon.

Many, many times in the New Testament, as forgiveness is talked about and illustrated, it is coupled with finances, the idea of finances and indebtedness.

So there is this coupling you'll see in my notes where I use the word forgiveness and pardon almost interchangeably.

It borrows heavily from the picture of debt and repayment.

And then I want you to see this next bullet point.

This is my working definition, okay?

Deciding to recuse oneself from determining the punishment or exacting that punishment, letting go of personal involvement in the punishment.

Okay, so yes, I use the word punishment three times.

Um if you are a judge that gets a case in Baltimore City and it happens to be your cousin, your job is to recuse yourself.

What does that mean?

That means you you don't take the case, you let another judge take the case, right?

You recuse yourself.

I believe that biblical forgiveness is that idea, okay?

Where we take ourselves and we say, I'm going to recuse the case.

I am not going to be the one that determines forgiveness.

I'm not going to be the one that determines what the punishment is, and I am not going to exact the punishment myself, letting go of my personal involvement in that person's punishment.

So it's here's the thing.

Punishment still may happen, right?

Civilly.

God may still discipline that person.

Punishment may still take place, but I am not involved in it.

I am letting go of it.

Alright, let's keep going.

So there's some pillars.

If we're going to understand forgiveness, we've got to understand these pillars.

This is what kind of really makes up our understanding of biblical forgiveness.

So, in other words, if we're going to like construct a foundation for the idea of forgiveness, this is this is these are some of the pieces you've got to understand.

First of all, objective moral law.

That means that he is morally perfect.

He is also absolutely just.

So when we talk about, as Christians, when we talk about what is right and wrong, we are talking about right and wrong based off of what God says is right and wrong.

Like we're not just pulling it out of thin air and like I don't like the color pink, you know, so it's wrong.

No, that's that's like subjective.

When we talk about murder being wrong, we say murder is wrong because God says that murder is wrong.

Right?

So it's objective, it's not subjective.

If you do not follow Christianity, you do not believe in the Bible, but you believe in morality, I would love to hear your defense for where morality comes from.

Maybe you follow a different faith.

That could be your system of ethics.

But if you say, look, I don't believe there is any moral norm, but there is right and wrong, that's very hard logically to establish.

Moral norms are real and objective because they are rooted in a standard.

Second, forgiveness pardons actual wrongdoing.

When we talk about forgiveness, um we are talking about something that is um that is an objective violation of the law.

And third, forgiveness isn't just a social apparatus to help humans get along and resolve conflict.

No, forgiveness is something that fits into a bigger system.

Uh does that make sense?

So if if if there is a moral law, and if God is just, which I believe is the next point here, the fact that God is just, it means that forgiveness is a uh transaction that is also objective.

Right?

The fact that God is just, nothing slips by.

The Bible teaches that God is just.

It gave you some scriptures there.

All wrongdoing is dealt with in a system of divine justice.

Not only does God determine what is wrong, but he also requires judgment.

Forgiveness is not spontaneous, accidental, rogue, or inappropriate.

You may be able to describe your Uncle Bob like that with those words, but God's forgiveness is not spontaneous, accidental, rogue, or inappropriate.

There is a system in which God deals with wrong.

So we are not only able to identify moral evil, but we're also able to look at God's system for dealing with what is wrong.

It's not a fly by the seat of your pants, justice.

It is systematic.

The next thing that the Bible establishes and teaches is that everyone is guilty, universal guilt.

Romans 3.23 says that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Everyone needs the forgiveness of God.

We are all in God's courtroom, right?

There is none of us that escape the judgment of God.

In fact, God has already determined that we are a guilty people.

The Bible makes it clear that we have all violated the perfect moral standard of God.

We are all guilty.

Guilt must be punished.

The only escape from punishment is forgiveness and pardon.

Forgiveness and pardon must have a basis.

Some people look at think, well, God's going to forgive me because I'm penitent or remorseful.

No, our being sorry for our sin does not pay for our sin.

Okay?

The next kind of pillar for understanding forgiveness is that Jesus' atonement on the cross.

Jesus received the punishment for all humanity's sin on the cross so that God could offer us forgiveness and pardon.

Remember, I said God is the objective moral lawgiver, he's the standard.

Then there's a justice system that God oversees.

We have all violated that justice system.

God's answer for us, the only answer that we have to find forgiveness is the fact that Jesus paid for that punishment.

Remember my definition of forgiveness three times.

Use the word punishment, right?

Jesus was punished for our sin.

When he died on the cross, he paid our penalty that we owed God for our sin.

We had a debt.

We were indebted to God through our sin.

Jesus paid that debt.

Again, some great verses.

Hebrews 2 9, Colossians 1 13 through 14.

Punishment and discipline.

Very important distinguishing factor here.

It's really important that you see these two differently.

Punishment, there's a difference between punishment and discipline.

Punishment is painful payment for wrongdoing.

Discipline is corrective intervention from an outside party with the intent of improving the object of that discipline.

In other words, if I punish you, you're paying for what you've done wrong.

If you go to jail, some cities, some states view their judicial system as punishment.

More and more we're seeing in the institutionalized um, what do they even call it?

It's a corrective apparatus, right?

There's correction involved.

That's discipline.

When I discipline my kids, what I'm doing is I'm um causing pain in their life, whether it's interrupting their schedule or taking away a privilege, I'm causing pain in their life, but I'm also teaching them about how to do it right and better next time, right?

So as parents, we want to punish, we want to discipline our kids.

Punishment doesn't do a whole lot.

They they um, you know, you say to a kid, okay, go take a time out, right?

In the corner.

If that's just like a jail sentence for a kid and they're doing their time, and all they're doing is serving time, they may come away with that, with having learned a lesson, but that's not enough.

What kids need, and our role as parents or grandparents or caretakers in their life is to train them in the way that they should go, right?

So we're gonna see that as we process wrongs in our life, and as we engage in the discipline process that God's called us to participate in other people's lives, that's important.

We function in one another's relationships to discipline one another.

That has a negative, it sounds negative, right?

But really, it should be positive.

We're helping each other grow, right?

But it but we're not punishing one another.

Our punishment towards one another is ineffective and it's it's harmful to ourselves.

Three governments.

This is another essential thing to understand, essential for us understanding.

There are three different kinds of forgiveness.

There's God's forgiveness, there's government's forgiveness, and there's personal forgiveness.

In a sense, all three are a government.

God's a government, there is the civic government, and then there's we ourselves kind of have a um an authority, right?

These three are distinct.

The forgiveness that Jesus is teaching about here is a forgiveness that is personal forgiveness.

Personal forgiveness.

And God first.

This is the last pillar.

When we are told to forgive, we are not being asked to do more than what God has already done for us.

In Colossians 3 13, it says, as Christ has forgiven you your sins, so you also forgive those who have trespassed against you.

So God has done the forgiving work first and isn't asking you and I to do anything more than what he has already done.

Okay, why should we forgive?

Why should we forgive?

First of all, in Matthew 6, Matthew 6, 14, it says, If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive others their sins, your father will not forgive your sins.

So I would say that that's an imperative, right?

That we should forgive because we also want to be a people forgiven.

And we're going to get to this idea in just a second.

But let me say this first.

Our society, the culture that you and I live in and work in and have friends in and have neighbors in tonight, tomorrow, this week, our society views forgiveness in a positive light, much in the same way that Christi the Christian faith views it as a positive act.

Forgivers are celebrated in our culture.

Now they're weird, but they're celebrated.

Now, I I try to, as we're going through the text, I try to point out when what the Bible teaches is also agreed upon by our culture.

And the reason I do that is because as a church, we believe that each one of us, not just the pastor, but each one of us, are called to be missionaries to the people around us.

So we have gospel conversations with our coworkers, our neighbors, and our family members.

And what's important when we're having gospel conversations is that we find points of agreement.

Because points of agreement between our value system as Christians and those who are secular serve as a bridge that we can walk across with the gospel.

So the issue of forgiveness is something where we agree that it's a good thing as Christians.

Your secular neighbor probably agrees, at least Oprah does, that it's a good thing.

Now, here's the thing.

I would suggest that Christians have a logical basis for their forgiveness that transcends their individuality.

It's bigger than them as an individual, and they have an external enabling power to do that act of forgiveness.

So while we agree that forgiveness is good, as Christians, we see forgiveness with in a system which is God's justice.

System.

Whereas if you're a secularist, you see forgiveness as a value, but it's it's an internal value that I do not have the capacity to hold on to wrongs.

I've got to let go of them so that I'm not a bitter person.

So if you talk to Oprah and she says you need to forgive, it's you need to forgive so that you can be a functioning individual.

That's true.

I struggle somewhat with her broad definition of forgiveness.

But it is true we need to let go of things so we can function, but our purpose for doing it is broader as a Christian.

We do it because it fits within God's justice system.

And then God gives us his spirit to enable us to forgive.

God gives us his spirits to Christians so that they can be empowered to forgive.

So why should we forgive?

First of all, the first point is that we should forgive because God tells us to do it.

So it's an act of obedience.

That should be enough, right?

But I'll give you three more reasons, right?

We should forgive because we are forgiven.

That's the second point.

And Jesus, you know the parable out of Matthew 18.

This guy, he's got a big debt, right?

His master forgives this impossibly large debt.

Then the guy turns around and goes to somebody else who has a debt to him, and even having just been forgiven, he wants to press this guy to repay the debt.

And everybody's looking at this, going, You're the guy that just got forgiven.

How could you do that?

You ought to forgive as you were forgiven.

So that's the second reason.

The third reason is really important, and this is where, again, it gets close to society.

We should forgive because the alternative does not work out justice.

Our unforgiving, our withholding forgiveness from somebody, does not work out justice.

So God's already set up an economy, He's set up a courtroom.

He's already figured out what people should pay for wrongs.

He's already paid for wrongs.

So when you and I decide that I'm going to withhold forgiveness, we're just coming up with our own justice system.

And it doesn't work.

Right?

As I withhold forgiveness from somebody, I'm probably causing them pain or I'm holding my breath hoping that they will experience pain in their life, right, if I'm unforgiving.

But yet that pain that they experience does not work in God's justice system.

It actually doesn't affect any change.

It may, in a sick way, make us happy, like, oh, they got theirs.

But it really doesn't, it doesn't accomplish anything.

Our purposed punishment for the wrongdoer does not actually remove the wrong or heal our wound.

How many people have you heard say that?

Who've held on to bitterness and then finally they've seen like the bad guy caught or serve a sentence and they still feel empty.

They feel like the matter is not resolved through the pain the other person has experienced.

The fourth point is this, the fourth reason we should forgive is attempting to determine the punishment or exact the punishment is emotionally draining and a waste of time because it isn't our role in the first place.

You and I are not made to create the justice system, and so by trying to do it, we wear ourselves out.

Okay, how does forgiveness work?

How does forgiveness work?

There are two things, two things that you need to think about.

First is the idea of conditions, and the second is consequences.

Conditions and consequences.

in order for you to forgive them?

How many of you say yes?

Okay?

How many of you say no?

Okay?

Okay, good.

That's the first question.

Is forgiveness conditional?

The second deals with consequences.

When I forgive somebody, are their consequences removed or do they stay in place?

How many of you say the consequences are removed?

Okay?

How many of you say the consequences are in place, in force?

Okay.

It's tricky, huh?

It's tricky.

Okay, so this is where I'm at, right?

So this is the stuff I'm wrestling with.

So I'm I'm not going to put this forward as a pastor and say I've nailed it yet.

But I think that this factors in.

I believe if you look in the Old Testament and look at the 120 uses of the word forgiveness, it is very much conditional.

Throughout the prophets, throughout Psalms, it talks about how God will forgive the penitent heart.

Remember Solomon's prayer.

God, when we turn to you, if we turn to you in this tabernacle and we pray to you, then forgive us.

Right?

When God speaks to the prophets over and over again, it says that God is forgiving to the penitent, but he withholds, but he pours out his wrath upon the wicked.

It's very much conditional.

But as we get into the New Testament, it seems to become more and more unconditional in terms of forgiveness.

And remember, right, we said there's a difference between God's forgiveness and ours.

Now, if a person does not surrender their life to Jesus Christ, place their faith in him, and they die, are they forgiven of their sins?

No.

We believe that the Bible says that that is the sin that is unforgivable, that they will live eternally under judgment, God's wrath.

So, in a sense, there is this conditionality to God's forgiveness.

So I had one pastor that I worked under who said in Colossians 3.13, it says that we're supposed to forgive like God forgives, and it's conditioned.

So if we go and we forgive somebody who's unrepentant, then we're misrepresenting God.

We're misrepresenting the justice of God if we forgive somebody arbitrarily.

You can see the logical progression there, right?

But what about this verse?

When you pray, standing, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive your sins.

Is that conditional or unconditional?

It's unconditional.

Seems pretty unconditional to me.

So here's what I think.

I think we've got to distinguish between how God forgives and how we forgive.

And again, we're operating within God's justice system.

Right?

We are participants in God's justice system.

And so when we forgive, when we forgive, we are shadowing some part, some aspect of God's justice system, but our forgiveness is different and unique from how God forgives.

What about with Christians?

The same thing.

A Christian sins against you and they're unrepentant, right?

They continue to hurt you in some way, gossip about you, maybe they take your money or whatever.

And they're a Christian, they're a believer.

They go to church with you.

Do you forgive them?

I think you forgive them.

I think you're supposed to forgive that person.

Yeah.

Are they forgiven by God?

Yes, they are forgiven by God.

If they stole money from you, they left church and they got in a car accident, I believe that they are going to go to heaven.

They've placed their faith in Christ.

The fact that they stole that money was wrong.

But I think it's paid for by Jesus on the cross and they will go to heaven.

That's good news because some of you have talked to you about heaven.

You know, some of you have struggled with your health, and I'm like, hey, do you know if you die right now, are you going to go to heaven?

We know that, look, if you die today, if you placed your faith in Christ, you are going to go to heaven.

You may not, upon your death, know everything you've ever done wrong, and you may not have repented of every one of those things.

But if you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ, when you appear before God's judgment seat, you are a forgiven person because of what Jesus did on the cross.

You are forgiven.

So a couple more scriptures.

Here's Luke 17, 3.

This is what we're in.

This is our text this morning.

If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them.

If they repent, forgive them.

This seems to be sequential, almost conditional.

So if we go back just for a second to this chart, here's kind of where I'm at personally, as I wrestle with 150 verses.

I think that forgiveness is pretty much unconditional.

I think in the New, especially in the New Testament, I think that forgiveness is pretty much unconditional.

And I think that if Matthew, if Mark gives that, or no, Matthew gives us this scripture about like, look, God won't forgive you unless you forgive those that have sinned against you, that means the stakes are pretty high.

So we've got to get this right.

If you and I are going to decide that we're going to withhold forgiveness for a condition, gosh, you and I better be right.

Right?

Because if he says that our forgiveness is conditioned by or his forgiveness of us is conditioned by our forgiveness of others, then that makes the stakes pretty high.

So I'm at the point personally where I think forgiveness is primarily unconditional.

When it comes to consequences, I think that you see some instances where consequences are in place and other instances where consequences are removed, but this is where we start talking about different governments.

And we could include church government in there as well.

So I think individually we are.

Yeah, see, I'm still even conflicted about this.

Because so let's say you have a um a father-daughter relationship, and the the daughter's grown, and every time she talks to her dad, the dad is abusive on the phone.

And she's reading this verse that says we need to be forgiving, right?

And so she's talked to her dad, she's told him, hey, this is sin, you cannot, you cannot like belittle me and abuse me in this way.

Um but every time she gets on the phone, he's like that.

So is Jesus saying that when she forgives him, that she is not to make any change in her life, that she's not to have, there's not to be any consequences for that man's sin.

I think there are consequences.

I think that there are, I think you can adjust your behavior a bit in that setting.

We're gonna get to questions in just a second, but but you see why this gets complicated.

Let me show you a couple more verses that are so essential.

This one, 2 Corinthians 5 through 10.

So in the church they had a guy who was sinning habitually.

He was um sleeping with his father's wife, and they put him out of the church.

Um, they disciplined him.

They said, You can't be in the church anymore until you repent of this sin.

Well, he repented.

He came back, and this is what Paul tells the church in the second letter that he wrote to them.

He said, If anyone has caused grief, this is meaning this guy, if he's caused grief, he has not so much grieved me, as much as he's grieved all of you to some extent, not not to put it too severely.

So that's Paul speaking.

I'm not trying to put this in harsh terms, Paul is saying.

The punishment that's inflicted on him by the majority of the church, it's sufficient.

Now, instead, you ought to forgive this person and comfort him so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

I urge you therefore to reaffirm your love to him.

It continues.

It says this another reason I wrote to you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything.

In other words, are you gonna be obedient in forgiving him?

Anyone you forgive, I also forgive, and what I have forgiven, if there was anything to forgive, I have forgiven it in the sight of Christ for your sake.

Tons of stuff there.

But here it seems like forgiveness is paired with a change of consequences.

We're gonna take away the consequences that were inflicted before, where you were not allowed to enjoy the friendships of church.

We're gonna bring you back in so you can enjoy those friendships, and that's called forgiveness.

So there's some consequences that are um changed.

Last verse.

Last, or no, two more verses.

1 John 1 9.

If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins, purify us from all unrighteousness.

Again, there seems to be some conditionality about this, but I think this is more descriptive than functional.

I think we're a forgiven people.

But I think relationally, um, if we want a relationship to work with God, we have to be a people that are confessing when we mess up, so that the relationship is restored.

Judicially, we are always counted righteous because of the blood of Christ, but relationally, we need to confess our sins so that He can forgive us.

And then Luke 23, 34, Jesus praying from the cross, he says, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

They divided up his clothes by casting lots.

So Jesus is forgiving from the cross.

This seems unconditional, right?

It seems like there is not a condition upon this forgiveness.

So you wrestle with it.

Make the box.

I think you could take, I think you could take that chart and you could fit different verses into that, into the different boxes on that chart.

So some objections to forgiveness.

Here's the objections that I often hear.

If I forgive, won't they just hurt me again?

If someone commits a crime against me and I forgive them, should I still repeat report the crime to the police?

How do we forgive but not minimize sin, saying, oh, it's no big deal, or forget about it?

And then do we misrepresent the gospel when we forgive an unrepentant sinner?

All valid questions.

Um I rather than addressing these, I'd rather use 10 minutes to hear your questions and see if we can wrestle through anything.

What's come up out of this conversation that um you might have a question about when it comes to forgiveness?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting.

Uh yeah, I can see that.

Yeah, that's a good point.

I it's um uh for as I'm sitting here listening to you, I'm realizing the the main verse in my own uh understanding, like the the chief verse to me that describes forgiveness, I didn't actually put into a slide.

It's Romans um chapter twelve.

Uh I think it's verse 15, where it says, don't take vengeance.

Let God repay.

It's a whole idea that we're gonna turn over the matter.

So, like my definition is primarily based off of that verse in Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Did I okay good?

Yeah.

We're gonna recuse ourselves.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He will.

Yeah.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

That's really good.

I know your situation, and I I think you've I I've from me viewing your life, I think you've practiced this.

There's a really good um book written by some sociologists about the um murder that took place in Lancaster when the Amish were murdered.

Three sociologists looked at the Amish that forgave the man that murdered the ten kids in that schoolhouse.

And um, they're not Christians, but they analyzed why were the Amish so ready within the day, within the day of the Amish families went to the murderers, because the murderer um committed suicide.

But the Amish families who lost kids went to his parents and siblings and said, You're gonna go through hell over the next week.

And we just want you to know we've forgiven you.

And it was in the news, it was striking, but these sociologists looked at this Amish community, they said, Why?

Why were they so ready to forgive like this in that setting?

Um, this first question if if I if I forgive, won't they hurt me over and over again?

Yeah.

Yeah.

A part of what Jesus is saying is that, yeah, you're you're opening yourself up to hurt again.

Do we hurt God over and over again?

Do we sin against him even after he's forgiven us once?

Yeah, we do.

And so there is an aspect, there is an aspect of not being not self-preservation, but being willing to hurt, be hurt.

Now that doesn't mean that you you have to be um gullible and necessarily um have no boundaries.

So let's say you've got the daughter in this conversation with the dad, and he's weekly, she's calling him.

So she's uh she's practicing forgiveness by calling him every week.

But she's also giving limits that as soon as he becomes abusive, she says, Dad, have a good day, and hangs up on him and calls back the next week, checks in with him.

And if he's if he's abusive, then you hang up on him again.

And says, Dad, have a good day.

You know?

So I think that there's definitely room for limits.

There's obviously the whole verse we're studying this morning says, if you see sin, you rebuke it.

So we're definitely not sweeping it under the carpet.

Matthew 18 says you also have at dispo at your disposal the the community, right?

So let's say you have somebody in the church that's wounding you repeatedly, they're sinning against you.

Well, well, Jesus tells his disciples, you tell them their fault, and then if they don't listen to you, then you take somebody else from the church with you to tell them their fault, to be a witness against them.

And if they don't hear them, then take the um two or three witnesses and then tell it to the church.

Let the church speak into that person's life.

Again, the goal for the person who's sinning is to get them to hear what's wrong.

So you have the Holy Spirit to help you, but you also have to help you forgive, but you also have the church at your disposal to help you as a justice system to enact God's justice on earth.

So while you are able to forgive that person, you're also able to pursue justice through the church if it's just an ethical issue that's not criminal.

But by all means, if it's criminal, call the police.

Forgive them and call the police.

They're not in conflict with each other, right?

Do you understand that?

It's essential that you understand that when you forgive, you are, yeah, you are you are saying, um, God, this is not in my courtroom.

I'm turning this over to your courtroom, and your courtroom includes the government.

Okay?

This is the problem.

This is what I mean.

Well, I don't I don't mean to have talked about church scandals two weeks in a row, but this is the problem in the church, is you'll get a complaint about like this this guy over here was messing around with these kids, and the church is kind of like, you know, let's let's uh let's just try to deal with this in house.

They don't they're not recognized.

The leaders in the past have not been recognizing this is a God's appointed civil government issue.

It has to be dealt with criminally.

And we forgive him, like individually, we forgive him, and we're gonna pursue.

Justice simultaneously, they're not in conflict.

What other questions?

Do you have any cut other questions?

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's in Matthew eighteen.

Right.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, because we know from Scripture that our forgiveness comes from receiving Christ.

And so in these texts where it says, if you don't forgive, you're not going to be forgiven.

And the same thing in the parable, it seems like these two teachings are in conflict.

So I I believe personally that the judgment that's being spoken of, both in Mark and in Matthew, where he says, look, if you don't forgive, you will not be forgiven.

I think that it's talking about a generally a disposition of forgiveness.

And I think that the fruit of a person that is born again, because remember, we look at fruit in people's lives, right?

One of the fruits that flows from a Christian's life is forgiveness.

So a person that is like, I'm not going to forgive, I'm going to take vengeance, I think there's a valid question about their spiritual condition.

So I don't think that when it talks about God not forgiving the person, that it's just an internal suffering.

I really think that Jesus is saying, look, if you don't forgive, you'll not be forgiven.

But I don't think that's the system for our forgiveness.

I think it's the reflection of an inward work that God's done.

Yeah.

So it is confusing.

It is, it's definitely confusing.

And I came across it in a couple sermons I listened to this week.

They really spent time on making sure, hey, you got to understand this.

Okay?

Good question.

So, Don, I'm going to close with Don's story.

Don't Don's one of my heroes of forgiveness.

Some of you don't, many of you don't know this, but Don um was engaged to get married when he was 24, 24, and he was driving.

His fiance was driving uh down a road, and a gravel truck driver was driving the opposite way, and he sli fell asleep and killed her.

This was three days before he was supposed to get married.

So it went before a judge, and you guys decided to say, We forgive.

We forgive him.

He um uh had the guy had been not sleeping, right?

He he hadn't working, yeah.

Yeah, so you guys that and that's a key piece of forgiveness is the ability to put yourself in the other person's shoes.

That is like fundamental to the idea of forgiveness, right?

Is is is this ability to empathize.

And so forgive me.

This is tough.

This is tough.

Um hopefully we've moved a little bit closer to some clarity this morning.

Um but I I'll tell you, it there is the the last thing I'll I'll say is is this is not felt.

This is decided, determined, and then felt.

You've got to make a volitional determination that you will do forgiveness.

And if God gives you the emotions afterwards, great.

But they're not promised, right?

This is something that you do not because you feel like it, you do it because it's um what God tells you to do.

All right.

Let's pray.

Lord, um, thank you for your word.

Thank you for letting us be followers of you.

And we're glad that whether this is hard for us and it's hard to even understand, like we know right now that we're a people that are forgiven.

And we know this week we're gonna sin, we're gonna mess up, Lord, we're gonna have a bad attitude, we're gonna complain, um, we're gonna want to cuss out the person that's driving next to us.

Who knows what's gonna happen this week?

Our family members or our co-workers.

Lord, thank you that we're forgiven people.

We are just so grateful that you have given us mercy through Jesus.

Thank you so much.

We are really, really thankful.

Let's stand together and let's uh sing this last song.