A Man Who Can Forgive Sin?

Hello, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the pastor, Church of the Messiah.

And those of you who have listened to some of these other sermons,

this sounds a little bit different than what you normally would hear.

And so I just want to let you know that what happened is that on the 25th of August,

I preached a sermon on Mark chapter 2, verses 1 to 12, the story of Jesus and the paralytic.

Mark 2:1–12

And I did the sermon, it was recorded, and then something happened.

The person in charge of the recording by accident deleted the sermon recording and wasn't able to recover it.

So what I'm doing now is I'm redoing the sermon, so to speak.

But I'm in an empty room and I'm going to do the best I can to redo the sermon.

And so that's why things sound a little bit different.

It's going to feel a little bit different as well.

So let's begin with a prayer.

Father, I ask that you would pour the Holy Spirit upon us.

Father, we both need forgiveness and we need to learn how to forgive.

And we confess before you that we are confused about forgiveness.

And so we ask, Father, that you would bring the wisdom of your word, the wisdom of your son,

deep into our heart, that we might learn our need to be forgiven by you,

our need to live out of the forgiveness that comes from you,

and that we might learn how to forgive as he has forgiven us.

And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your son and our savior.

Amen.

Okay.

One of the things that you hear all the time in the world,

not only in the world, I heard it in the coffee shop just the other day.

You hear it in Christian circles as well,

is that people have to learn how to forgive themselves.

So it's one of those things that if they say it in a movie,

people just say it as if it's great wisdom,

that you have to learn how to forgive yourself.

Now, there's a bit of a problem with this.

Let's just think about this for a second.

A few years ago, a fellow who has since moved out of the city,

there's a couple of years ago, a fellow did me great harm.

He wronged me.

He betrayed my trust more than once, and I only discovered it later.

He affected my reputation.

He did something that ended up meaning that I had to spend a fair bit of money

and a lot of stress to try to deal with it.

It caused me leadership problems in my church.

He wronged me, and he did it intentionally,

and he did it for his own advantage.

And it wasn't right.

And, you know, it's funny.

In preparing this sermon, I was thinking about it,

and I realized I think I've more or less forgiven him,

but I don't think I've forgiven him all the way,

and I have to go back to praying into the situation to learn how to forgive him.

But here's the point.

He never has apologized.

He's never owned up to anything he's done.

He brazened his way through everything that happened

and has never acknowledged anything as having been done wrong.

But let's say all of a sudden, because I know people who know him,

I know people who are friends of his,

have all of a sudden,

I discovered that he's really starting to feel bad about this,

what he did to me.

And he's brought it to God and confessed it to God,

and now he's working on forgiving himself.

Now, just pause here for a second.

This is like, you go, what do you mean?

Like, I go, whoa, what do you mean he's working on forgiving himself?

Like, why is he working on forgiving himself

when he's never actually said sorry to me?

Like, shouldn't he actually try to apologize to me

before he tries to forgive himself?

Like, what does that even mean that he's working on?

Like, in fact, it would actually make me think less of him,

that he's trying to forgive himself

without actually trying to make amendment of a life

or apologize or anything like that.

You see the problem?

And that's separate from another issue,

which is an issue altogether

with the whole issue of forgiveness,

is that for many of us,

it's almost as if we have to choose to be,

do something which is just

trust and get justice or forgive,

and that you have to choose one or the other.

Because some of you might say,

George, I don't even understand

why you're trying to work on forgiving yourself.

Like, why are you even doing that?

Like, what you should have,

I mean, not forgiving yourself, sorry, I misspoke.

George, I don't understand

why you're even praying to forgive the guy.

Like, George, you shouldn't have done that.

What you should have done

is you should have gone after the guy.

You should have made sure everybody knew.

You should have embarrassed him.

Like, you should have gone after justice

rather than learning how to try to forgive him.

Well, in the midst of these types

of very, very current issues,

there's a story in Mark's gospel about Jesus,

which is very, very helpful for us to understand

and try to think these things all through.

So if you're turning your Bibles

to Mark chapter two, verses one to 12,

Mark chapter two, verse one,

and as you turn to that,

it's the story which is famous amongst Christians

is the healing of the paralytic.

And it must be considered a very important story

because there's three, four eyewitness biographies of Jesus.

And out of the four ancient biographies of Jesus,

three of the ancient biographies tell this story.

And so it must be a really important story

if it got told in three of the eyewitness biographies.

And that's what Mark is in both,

we know that Mark was both an eyewitness

and an earwitness himself to many things in Jesus's life.

He was also a close companion

of many of the people who were eye and ear witnesses

of the things that went on in the story of Jesus.

And he wrote when the eyewitnesses,

many, many, many eyewitnesses were still alive.

And in fact, actually, scholars have often believed

that he did a little tiny interesting thing

of putting himself in the story very briefly.

If any of you have watched any of the Marvel movies,

you'll know, I mean, now Stan Lee just died recently,

but you'll know that if you watch those movies,

they always had some tiny instant,

just a few seconds maybe,

where Stan Lee, the creator of,

the guy who was behind Marvel Comics,

where he gets into the story.

You see him in some ways as a bus collector

or as a restaurant patron or something like that.

And there's a, people believe that Mark

inserted himself in the story as well.

Towards the very end of Mark's gospel,

his ancient biography,

there's a scene where Jesus has been captured

in the garden.

And this is the capturing in the garden of Gethsemane

and Jesus is going to die the next day,

but he's captured by soldiers and guards.

And the disciples flee.

And there's a young man who'd been following along,

watching everything.

And the soldiers go to grab him.

And the man is so afraid that he actually,

they grab his robe,

but he runs and the clothes rip.

And he runs away naked,

leaving his clothes behind.

And many scholars believe that that was Mark

having a Stan Lee moment.

But the main thing to understand here is this,

that what Mark is claiming to do in this book

is he's trying, he's claiming to tell you

a true story about Jesus and a real miracle.

That's what he's claiming in the eyewitness biography.

So here's how it goes.

Mark chapter two, verse one,

and it goes like this.

When he, that's Jesus,

returned to Capernaum after some days,

it was reported that he was at home.

And many were gathered together

so that there was no more room,

not even at the door.

And Jesus was preaching the word to them.

Now, just pause here for a second.

Most of us are familiar with the idea

that Jesus is from Nazareth.

And he was born in Bethlehem,

but he grew up in Nazareth.

And now Jesus is in his public ministry.

And he's basically the center of his ministry now

is a place called Capernaum.

And it's 32 kilometers northeast of Nazareth.

And it's on the shore of the Sea of Galilee,

which is a very large inland lake.

That's his home now, Capernaum.

You know, all the populations in the ancient world

at that time were fairly small,

but it was a sizable enough village.

And it was a pretty important place of commerce

for the region.

And that's now the center of where Jesus is.

That's when he's not out somewhere else.

He goes home.

He's in Capernaum.

So what happens here?

Verse three.

Remember, he's preaching the word to them.

And the room's completely and utterly packed

inside and outside.

They're all hanging around the doors and the windows

trying to hear him.

Verse three.

And they came, bringing to him a paralytic

carried by four men.

And when they could not get near Jesus

because of the crowd,

they removed the roof above Jesus.

And when they had made an opening,

they let down the bed

on which the paralytic lay.

Now, just pause here for a second.

This is sort of an odd story

if you're hearing it for the first time.

And, you know,

this wouldn't work very well

in our houses today here in Ottawa.

I don't know where you are

when you're listening to this,

but in Ottawa,

this wouldn't work very well.

You'd need chainsaws.

And if you took a chainsaw to a roof

and went through the different layers

to make a huge hole,

it would cause a huge problem.

It cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix.

And it wasn't that this was a,

I mean, it was a bit of a bother back then,

but where they lived,

it's a very dry area.

The roofs would have been flat.

It's fairly dry.

Roofs were flat, flat.

There would have been beams.

And the beams would have been covered

with thatch and then some mud.

And there would have been some,

an area of plank or something up there

because people use the roof in a sense

also as a living place,

sort of like a very, very large balcony.

And so there might've been another type

of a shady thing up there.

So most of the houses back then

would have had stairs around the outside

to make it easy for people

to go up and to be on the roof.

And they'd have to walk carefully on the beams

and go to the area where you could sit.

So it still would have been a lot of bother,

the thatch, the mud,

and you can just imagine the dust.

And you can just imagine,

this isn't like a holy, quiet moment of awe.

The homeowner is probably yelling

at these four guys.

There's probably lots of cursing.

And it's not a place of holy, quiet

as these guys wreck a big hole in the roof.

They've obviously come prepared with ropes

and they drop the guy down

right in front of Jesus.

People move out of the way,

banging into each other,

out of the way,

and they drop this guy right at Jesus's feet.

So how does Jesus react?

Well, let's look in verse five.

Here's how Jesus reacts.

And when Jesus saw their faith,

he said to the paralytic,

son, your sins are forgiven.

Now, just pause.

In the original language here, by the way,

it's a verbal tense called the divine passive.

So it's very obvious in the original language

that Jesus is saying two things.

He's saying that God has forgiven

all of this person's sins or wrongdoing.

And that, in a sense,

Jesus has also forgiven this person.

Jesus is God.

It's a very, very clear claim

that Jesus is God.

And that Jesus, as God,

has forgiven this man

of all of the sins,

all of the wrongdoing he's ever done,

all of the things he should have done

but didn't do.

You know, they're called like sins of omission.

You know, you know you should pay the money,

somebody their money back

because you have the money in the pocket

and they ask for it and you don't give them.

That's wrong, right?

That's a sin of omission.

Or you take money out of their pocket.

That's stealing.

That's wrong.

So one's a sin of omission.

One's a sin of commission.

And Jesus is saying,

all of your sins are forgiven.

Now, this is weird, right?

This is a very, very weird thing.

I mean, he didn't come there

to have his sins forgiven.

He's not asking to have his sins forgiven.

He came there to get healed

because he'd heard

that Jesus was able to heal people.

And he came there,

him and his friends came there

and said to be healed,

not to be forgiven.

And you can well imagine,

you know,

you can well imagine

that the guy and his friends

think, well, that's very nice

and very pious.

But at the end of the day,

they probably are crushed.

They're very, very disappointed.

They didn't want to have

some statement about their sins

dealt with.

They wanted healing for their friend.

The guy wanted healing.

And there'd probably be disappointment.

Now, that's what's probably

going on within them.

But there's a group of other people there

who are looking at it

in a very, very, very, very different way.

And let's see what happens

because it's not that

they're just thinking

this is sort of odd.

He came for healing

and the guy's forgiving his sins

and their sense of disappointment.

No, these other people,

they heard what Jesus said

and it sort of shocked them.

And they have a very,

very different take

on what happens.

Listen to what happens.

It's verse six.

Now, some of the scribes

were sitting there

questioning in their hearts.

Why does this man speak like that?

He is blaspheming.

Who can forgive sins

but God alone?

Now, just sort of pause there

for a second.

Now, the first thing

you have to understand here

is what's a scribe?

Okay.

So, there's no real equivalent

to what a scribe is.

The version of the Bible

that I've just read

gives you a good literal

translation.

But what you need to do

is you need to think about

somebody who's both a lawyer

and not only a lawyer

but also a professor of law.

And you need to know somebody

who is an intellectual.

And you need to have somebody

who's,

who maybe is an expert

in cultural studies.

And then you also have to have

somebody who's like a YouTuber

commenting on the culture

that lots and lots of people go to

because they see this YouTuber

as being very authoritative

about what's going on

in the culture.

And they want to hear

his or her cultural commentary.

And if you could think of somebody

who's both a lawyer

and a law professor

and an intellectual

and a cultural studies professor

and a YouTuber

all rolled up in one,

you have a scribe.

Okay?

That's what they are.

They're these multifaceted experts

in how the culture works,

how thinking works,

what means what.

And they're there.

And what they pick up

is not,

wow, this is weird.

This must be really disappointing

to this guy

to have this, you know,

silly statement about sins

being forgiven

when he wants to be healed.

They don't think that at all.

They pick up instantly

that Jesus has made a claim

to be God.

That's what they pick up on.

And, and for us,

we would take up

the idea of

somebody wanting to be God

and thinking that's cuckoo land.

And some of you listening to this

come to Church of the Messiah.

Some of you listening to this

have visited Church of the Messiah.

Some of you listening to this

have never been to Church of the Messiah.

We're, we're in urban Ottawa.

There's lots of crazy people

walking around the streets.

I mean, not lots,

but they're, you know,

you don't have to go very far

or wait very long

before you'll meet somebody

who's obviously,

you know, mentally ill

and who might think they're God

or do other types of

things like that.

But they don't think like that.

They think this guy,

here's a dude

just standing there,

obviously a human being.

And what he's doing

is he's claiming to be God.

And from their context,

it's blasphemy

to, to try to think

that there can be anybody

other than only God is God.

And how can you be God?

You can't make that claim.

It's, it's just wrong.

So what does Jesus do

about all of this?

Now, here's one of the things

which is so interesting

about Jesus.

And you see it all the way through

the, the, the,

the biographies of, of him

is Jesus walks towards the problem,

not away from it.

He walks right towards the problem

to deal with it.

Look at, look what happens next

in verses eight through 11.

And immediately, right?

Immediately,

Jesus perceiving in his spirit

that they, that's the scribes,

thus questioned within themselves,

said to them,

why do you question these things

in your hearts?

Which is easier to say

to the paralytic?

Paralytic, your sons are forgiven?

Or to say, rise,

take up your bed and walk?

But that you may know

that the son of man

has authority on earth

to forgive sins.

He then turns to the paralytic.

I say to you, rise,

pick up your bed and go home.

I'm going to just read that

verse 10 and 11.

I'm going to read that

verse nine through 11 again.

Which is easier to say

to the paralytic,

your sons are forgiven?

Or to say, rise,

take up your bed and walk?

But that you may know

that the son of man

has authority on earth.

That is not only

that he has the power,

the scribes say

he has the ability

to make that type of thing.

He says that I have the ability,

an authoritative ability.

And just so that you can know

that I have this authoritative ability

on earth to forgive sins,

he then says to the paralytic,

I say to you, rise,

pick up your bed and go home.

Now let's just pause here

for a little bit

and just think about

what's just taken place

in Jesus' response.

So the first thing

you have to understand here

is that Jesus is not saying

that the man's sin

caused the sickness.

He's not saying

that you need to forgive

to be able to be healed.

He's not saying

that you need to be forgiven

to be healed.

He's not saying anything

like that at all.

He's not encouraging

the man to forgive

and because he's forgiving,

he's now able

to psychologically forgive.

It somehow frees him up

from some psychosomatic problem

and he's now able to walk.

None of that's going on.

He's not saying

sin caused the sickness

or you need to forgive

to be healed

or anything like that.

What he's doing here,

and I think this is

one of the reasons

why this story

is in three of the biographies,

is that Jesus

throws down the gauntlet.

He throws down the gauntlet.

Throwing down the gauntlet

is like a bit of a challenge,

right?

It's an expression

about making a challenge.

He's throwing down the gauntlet.

He's challenging

every religion,

every spirituality,

every philosophy

to put up or shut up,

so to speak.

You know,

what he's saying is,

I'm going to give you

some evidence

that what I'm saying

is justified.

I'm going to give you

some way to vindicate

and justify my claims

because, you know,

talk is cheap.

You know,

Muhammad can say

that he is the prophet of Allah.

Well, but what's the proof?

Like, what's the proof?

You know,

in Hinduism,

you can say,

well,

that there's the reincarnation

and there's karma

and there's yoga

and there's all these practices,

but, yeah,

like, talk is cheap.

Like, how are you going

to prove that, right?

And you can have

your native spirituality

and you believe this

and believe that

and in a sense,

Jesus is saying to them,

yeah, but how do you prove that?

Like, why,

what evidence is there

that I should actually believe

that this is something true?

And it would be the same as well.

It would be the same for Marxism.

It would be the same

for different philosophies

and theologies

and personal spiritualities

that people around us

and maybe some of you

who are listening

have developed

bits and pieces

of this and that

as you're trying

to make your way

forward spiritually

and Jesus is saying

that I'm not just talking

about spirituality

or religion

as if it's untrue.

It's just something like,

it's like a personal thing

that you happen to like

that gives you

a moment of peace.

I'm making,

I'm making claims

about the very nature

of the world,

the nature of reality

and I am willing

to do something

that vindicates,

that justifies

these remarkable claims

that I make

and I would say

that only Christianity

out of all the religions

and spiritualities

of the world

is falsifiable.

Jesus lays down

this challenge

and it's only

the Christian faith

that lays down

such a challenge

and is able to meet it

if you look at the evidence.

And the claim is

that Jesus

by his mere

act of will alone

is going to be able

to heal this man.

Now some of you

might say,

okay,

one moment George

here,

I don't understand

how these types

of authorities

are connected

and here's how

they're connected.

See the fact of the matter

is,

is that both are impossible

so to speak,

right?

On one hand,

I can't say to you,

a listener,

all your sins are forgiven.

I forgive

all of your sins.

You say,

George,

like you don't even know

the things I've done.

You don't even know me.

I'm just listening to you

on your podcast.

You know,

you don't know me.

How can you,

like who do you think

you are that you can think

that every single wrong

thing I've ever done

and every wrong thing

I ever will do

that somehow another

George,

you forget,

like that doesn't

make any sense,

right?

So that's impossible

but the healing's

impossible as well.

So here's the thing,

what Jesus is saying

and this fits in

with the whole

understand,

the Christian understanding

of the world

and how the world

has developed

and came to be

and Jesus is saying

that if in fact

there is a God

who's created all things

and sustains all things,

if in fact

there is a God

who does exist,

who has created all things

and sustains all things,

then if that is the case,

every act of wrongdoing

is somehow

an act against him

as well as the creation

or the created being

or the person

that you've wronged.

and so only God

is implicated

in all wrongdoing

and therefore

you need God

and only he

can do something

that might involve

your forgiveness

for every single thing

that you've ever done

because he's the only

constant in your life.

Your mom might not

be the constant,

your dad,

your brother,

your sister,

your friend.

Only God is constant

if in fact

there is a God

that does exist

who's created

and sustained

all things

and the same God

who's created

and sustained

all things

is the only one

who could perform

by, in a sense,

a mere act of will

such remarkable healing.

So you see,

what he's saying

is that the two things

are connected

to point to the same God

that you and I

don't know

whether or not

your sins are forgiven

because that's invisible

and you can make

some type of claim.

Religions and spiritualities

are making all sorts of claim.

You know,

you chant this mantra

and it will help you

in your whole cycle

of birth and rebirth.

You, you know,

you say these prayers

and it makes you draw

close to the God

or to the goddess

or whatever

and people can say

all those things

but there's no way

of knowing

whether those things

are actually true or not.

But what Jesus is saying here

is that if there is a God

that does exist like that

and I am able to do something

that only God can do,

that shows that

as something

that only God can do

that these other things

that only God can do,

it makes sense

that I can do them as well.

That's how the argument

is working.

And by the way,

when I was talking about this

to a guy in a coffee shop

just very recently

and he was asking me about it,

he said,

well, what's the historical evidence

for this happening?

You see,

this is the,

there is no particular

historical evidence

for this particular miracle today

although there would have been

in John's,

in Mark's time

because in Mark's time

because it was written

while there were eyewitnesses

who were alive,

that would have meant

that somebody

who hears about this story,

some pagan who hears

about this story

in the Decapolis,

he can just get in a boat

and go across the Decapolis

and he can go to Capernaum

and ask around

as to whether this story

had ever happened,

see if he can meet

the four guys,

the four dudes

and the paralytic.

I mean,

you know,

when it was published,

the people who,

over what I read,

Mark's story,

his biography of Jesus

would have included

people who liked Jesus

and those who didn't like Jesus

and all of them

could have commented on it

but you see,

the big thing is for us

is that it's helping

to set the stage

for the great thing

which culminates

each of the four biographies

and Mark's biography included

and that is

the death of Jesus

upon the cross.

Everything in the story,

just read the story

of Mark

or Matthew

or Luke

or John

as a story

and you'll see

they all culminate

with Jesus dying

upon the cross

and him being truly buried

and on the third day

the grave being empty

and the resurrected Jesus

or the message

that Jesus is resurrected

ringing out.

The tomb is empty.

The grave clothes

are positioned

in such a way

that only something

like a resurrection

of the body

could explain

what happened

and people can hear

that is something

if you've never looked into it

there's good historical reasons

to believe

that Jesus really did die.

In fact,

everybody understands

that he was,

very few people now

would doubt

that Jesus lived.

Lots of historical evidence

he lived.

Everybody knows

he had to die

and there's lots

of historical evidence,

good historical evidence

that points

to the best solution

to the evidence

being that Jesus

rose from the dead.

The gauntlet

of all the,

the importance

of all the miracles

is made clear

in this story.

And so,

Jesus is claiming

not that he's going

to do surgery,

not that he's going

to pray to a God

or God to do this,

but that he himself

by the mere exercise

of his will

will heal this man.

So what happens?

Well,

that's how the story ends.

Look at verse 12.

In verse 12,

and he rose immediately,

that's the paralytic man,

he rose immediately

and picked up his bed

and went out

before them all

so that they were

all amazed

and glorified God

saying,

we never saw

anything like this.

So,

some of you might say,

oh yeah,

yeah,

they didn't know science.

Listen,

science only

creates the wow.

Just because

they didn't know

a whole pile of science

doesn't mean

that they didn't know

what he was talking about.

The fact of the matter is

they would have known

far more about this

than we did

because,

you know,

there was a very physical,

you know,

people lived in tiny,

tiny places

and they didn't hire out help.

They did the help themselves.

They got their hands dirty,

so to speak,

with each other's sicknesses

and issues

and if this man

had been paralyzed

for a while,

they would have seen

how skinny

his little stick legs were.

They would have seen

the atrophy of the muscle

and what happens

in this miracle

is that

it's not as if

Jesus says this thing

and then they all look

and whoa,

all of a sudden

he's able to twitch

his toe a little bit.

There must be some healing

or whoa,

look at this,

we can stick a stone

on his toe

and there's a bit

of a reflex

and for us,

it's okay,

you know,

if that happens,

okay,

it's good news,

you're not paralyzed.

There's still some feeling there,

there's still some movement

and it isn't that

Jesus just did this

but if you can just think

about the fact that,

you know,

the man's muscles

had atrophied

and whatever it is,

by the mere will

of Jesus alone,

new muscle

is there in the legs

new nerves

are there.

The problems

that were there

maybe that were causing

blockages

by an act of his will,

they are removed,

the new connections

of the nerves

and the new muscle

that needs to be there,

the new muscle memory

that needs to be there,

it's all created

by Jesus.

We now look at that,

it would have been

a huge wow to them

because they would have,

the guys who carried him

and probably helped his friend,

they would have seen

his little stick legs

and then later on

they'd say,

lift up your rope,

look at that,

you have muscles again,

dude.

Like you have flesh again,

dude.

Like that's what

they would have said.

And you don't have to have

a science degree

to understand the miracle,

science just increases

the wow.

and the implication

of the story

is that

if he could do this,

then it makes

complete and utter sense

that he has

the authority

to forgive sins.

So let's unpack this

a little bit more

as we try to bring this

up to an end.

Here's the first thing.

God himself

has invaded,

you see,

these are the wonderful thing

about the stories

of the gospel

is that it's helping you

to understand

by a story,

to enter imaginatively

and emotionally

into the story

and it's teaching you

at the same time

at a story level

profound,

conceptual truths.

God himself

has invaded

his fallen creation

to begin to put

things right

by offering full

and undeserved

forgiveness

to his sinning

image bearers.

I'll say that again.

God himself

has invaded.

Only God

could do

what Jesus

just did.

And Jesus

just did it.

So God himself

has invaded

his fallen creation

to begin

to put things

right

by offering

full

and undeserved

forgiveness

to his sinning

image bearers.

That's human beings.

So some of you

say,

whoa,

George,

whoa,

whoa,

whoa,

whoa,

whoa,

whoa,

whoa.

Undeserved?

Still sinning?

Like,

okay,

that,

George,

there's just a problem

here with this.

Like,

undeserved forgiveness

and still sinning?

See,

here's the,

here's the issue

for us.

It really,

that's why I worded

it the way it did.

Remember I said

at the very beginning,

you probably don't,

but if you,

you might remember

at the beginning

I said,

you know,

for a lot of us

in our culture,

it's as if you have

to choose between

forgiveness or justice.

When you face

a situation

and something's wrong

you've been wronged

in some type of way

and it's as if

all of the different people

are going to counsel you.

They're either going to tell you,

well,

listen,

forget about justice

and forgive.

And others say,

forget about forgiving,

get justice.

And,

and,

and,

and that's the thing.

You see,

on one hand,

we think,

well,

justice is a really,

really,

really good thing.

But sometimes,

you know,

you're not going to get

the justice you want

and so you've got to learn

how to forgive

because it makes you feel better.

Or,

or others will go

from the perspective of

it's very obvious

that often people

are able to forgive,

truly forgive another person.

There seems to be

a type of peace

and wholeness about them,

togetherness about them,

which we all desire to have.

And,

and so you,

you need to pursue forgiveness.

But if you,

if you do that,

you sort of have to give

justice a pass.

Right?

And that's why

a lot of advice

about forgiveness

is either about

learning how to forget

what went wrong

or giving the wrongdoer

a pass,

you know?

And so this,

what I've just said

is like,

you know,

the,

the person's still doing bad

and,

and undeserved

and a lot of times

what we think of

as trying to forgive somebody

is just actually making excuses

for them

or believing their excuses.

But,

but,

this is what's so amazing.

And only the Bible,

only the gospel grounds

our belief that forgiveness

is important

and justice is important

and only the Bible grounds

and helps us to understand

both forgiveness and justice

in such a way

that neither is violated

and both are fulfilled.

Only the Bible does this.

And that's what's being pointed to here

in this story

and is unfolded

in the entire gospel.

And,

and,

and,

and you see,

here's,

here's what you have to understand.

You,

you,

my second point,

you only forgive the person

whose wrongdoing is inexcusable.

This is what all forgiveness really is.

You only forgive the person

whose wrongdoing is inexcusable.

There's,

you know,

the fact of the matter is,

is if they have a good excuse,

then,

you don't really forgive them

because they didn't do anything wrong.

You know,

if,

if you,

if you,

if,

if a,

if an old lady,

if I,

I pushed an old lady

really,

really hard on the road

and,

or tackled her or something,

jumped on her and tackled her,

she'd,

might say,

she's going to have to figure out

how to forgive me.

But if,

if she finds out that I did that

to mean that she didn't get hit by a car,

all of a sudden,

she wouldn't be trying to come up with

giving me an excuse.

She'd be thanking me,

right?

So that's,

it's always what's left over

when all the excuses,

the real,

not excuses that are bad excuses,

just like it's a pile of,

you know,

hooey that we try to get around

taking responsibility for actions,

but when there's real

extenuating circumstances

that make you understand

the situation completely different,

that's not forgiveness.

It's always about something

that was wrong.

And,

you know,

for Christians,

since God knows everything,

he already knows

the extenuating circumstances.

He already knows what they are.

He knows them better

than you know them.

So it's not a matter of God

having to know that.

Forgiveness is always dealing with

that which is left over,

which is just wrong

and has to be dealt with.

But,

then we don't really know

what to do about that

because it seems as if,

well,

you'd,

I don't know,

like,

George,

here's the next point.

If justice is,

here's what the Bible would teach.

If justice is compromised,

it is not forgiveness.

True forgiveness

is a mercy

that upholds justice.

This is really important.

This is what the Bible teaches.

This is what the gospel grounds

and helps us to understand.

If justice is compromised,

it is not forgiveness.

True forgiveness

is a mercy

that upholds justice.

You see,

that's what the Bible reveals

about the God

revealed in the Bible.

Many of you have heard me say,

I don't believe in the God

that Canadians believe in.

I don't.

If I,

if the only God that existed

was the God,

if the only God

that you could believe in

was the God

that Canadians believed in,

I would be an atheist.

Okay?

If the only God

that you,

that anybody had ever heard of

was the God

that most Canadians believe in,

then I wouldn't believe

in that God.

I would be an atheist.

I would think that God

is bad in all sorts of ways.

I believe in the God

revealed by Jesus

and the God revealed

in the Bible.

And in the Bible,

the God who is revealed

is a God

who is always just

and always merciful.

And he's 100% just

and 100% merciful.

And he's never merciful

at the expense

of his justice

and he's never just

at the expense of mercy.

And what Christians believe

about the cross

is that in the cross,

when Jesus dies in my stead,

when Jesus,

in a sense,

sees my great need

that I have done wrong

and there's something

that needs to be done

about that

and that because

of the accumulated wrongdoing

and failure to do right

that has happened in my life,

that if I was to really,

in a sense,

be judged for that,

it would unmake me.

And so Jesus,

out of love for me,

comes and stands,

takes my place,

takes the punishment

in my stead.

And in that particular act then,

justice is still given.

It isn't as if God just says to me,

ah, George, you know what?

I like your smile.

I like your style.

I like your jokes.

And so I'm going to give you a pass.

And you know,

all those people

who you wronged,

who want justice,

well, it sucks to be them.

No, that's not what happens.

What the Bible teaches

is that the full justice of God

is on display

when Jesus dies upon the cross

and the full mercy of God

and the forgiveness of God

is available,

is on display

as Jesus dies on the cross.

That's why the glory of God

is revealed in the cross.

That's why God is revealed

most perfectly and fully

with Jesus dying upon the cross.

And then you say,

well, how is this possible?

How is this possible?

Well, here's another thing

you have to understand

to help you understand the cross.

You cannot forgive a person.

Remember I said earlier,

if justice is compromised,

it is not forgiveness.

True forgiveness is a mercy

that upholds justice.

Here's the thing.

You cannot forgive a person

without pain,

in quotes,

the satisfaction

justice requires.

You cannot forgive a person

without pain,

the satisfaction

justice requires.

I'll give you an illustration

about this.

So let's say I have a friend

who is moving

to another country overseas.

He can't bring his SUV with him.

And so I have a conversation with him

and we decide that I'm going to buy

his SUV for $12,000.

And just before he leaves,

he's giving me a bit of a discount

because he's tried to sell it,

he can't sell it,

he has to leave,

he wants to sell it.

And so we agree.

And so I say,

well, listen here,

I can't give you $12,000

right off the bat.

How about if every month

I give you $1,000

for 12 months?

At the end of the 12 months,

you have $12,000

and here's $1,000 in cash.

And because he's my friend,

there's no contract written down.

He takes me at my word

and he takes $1,000.

He gets on the plane,

he goes to another country.

And now,

but he's hoping on that $11,000.

$11,000 is a lot of money.

It's going to matter to him

and he has plans for it.

He's going to use

the next month's $1,000.

He's going to use it

to help buy some furniture.

Every month,

he's going to use that $1,000

for me to buy some furniture

and do some other things

to get set up

in the new place

that he's living.

But the next month comes up

and there's no e-transfer

from me for $1,000.

There's no wiring of money.

I don't do it.

And in fact,

he sends me emails.

He tries to call me

and he discovers

that I've changed

my phone number

and I've changed

my email address.

And month and month

and month goes by

and I don't pay him the money.

I stiff him.

I stiff him.

I keep the van,

the SUV.

I don't give him

the $11,000

that I own.

And I take means

to avoid him.

Now,

this eats away at him.

He thinks about it

and thinks about it

and thinks about it.

He thinks about it

every time

he's going to buy something

and he realizes

he was originally

going to buy that thing

for his new condo

or his new apartment

or his new house.

He was going to use

the $1,000 to pay for it.

He thinks about

going into debt himself

that he hadn't planned

or reducing his savings

that he hadn't planned for.

And he thinks about it

and it irks him.

I've betrayed his friendship.

I've broken my word.

I've hidden on him.

I've ripped him off.

And all of those things.

And it eats away at him

and eats away at him

and eats away at him

and eats away at him

and eats away at him.

Now, by the way,

just remember

one of the things

about forgiving yourself?

If I told you

that I was feeling bad about

and I was learning

to forgive myself,

wouldn't you just say

that's just

bleepity bleepity bleep?

That's not what required,

George,

if you've done something

like that

to learn to forgive yourself.

That doesn't mean anything.

That's, in fact,

deeply wrong.

But let's go back

to my friend.

He wants satisfaction

at a whole lot of levels.

He'd like the $11,000.

He'd like an apology.

He wants satisfaction

as connected to justice.

But let's say one day

a person who's talking to him

and says to him,

we'll call him Bob,

says,

Bob, you're beating yourself up.

You know,

he lives thousands of,

he lives across the ocean,

across a continent,

across the ocean.

You're never going to see him again.

You're never going to get the money.

And this is just

eating away at you,

making you bitter.

You're losing sleep.

You just got to forgive him.

And let's say

by a bit of a miracle,

he is able to forgive me.

What happens?

He has to pay

himself.

He has to pay himself

the satisfaction.

He has to forgo

the satisfaction.

He has to swallow

the loss of $11,000.

He has to swallow

his desire

for me

to acknowledge

I've done something wrong.

He has to swallow

the thing he'd wanted to do

to maybe let all my family

and my friends

in the church

know that I've been

a bad pastor

and I've done wrong things.

He has to swallow

all of his desires

for justice.

He has to pay

the satisfaction

that justice requires.

Why do people do it?

The more you forgive,

the more you are free

from the evil

done to you.

That's why our culture

understands that there is

something powerful

about forgiveness.

The more you forgive,

the more you are free

from the evil

done to you.

You see,

the evil that I had done,

if I had done this

to that man,

the evil that I had done

to them,

it eats him up.

It makes him angry,

you know.

Maybe it makes him

afraid to come

and maybe he can also

be afraid to confront me

because maybe I'll say,

how dare you say that?

Like,

you gave it to me

for a thousand dollars.

You have the paperwork?

Like,

you know,

you didn't sign a contract.

I'm not breaking,

just your word

against mine

and maybe I would

win the argument

and he would get red

and flustered

and embarrassed

and all of that

type of thing.

But the more you forgive,

the more you are free

from the evil

done to you.

He doesn't get consumed

by all of this.

The great human example

about this

over the last 20 or 30 years

is Nelson Mandela.

He wasn't a saint.

By any stretch

of the imagination,

he'd done some wrong things.

But the punishment,

apartheid,

was a great evil

and the punishment

done to him

was a great evil.

And one of the things

which is so remarkable

about Nelson Mandela

is that he understood

that if he was to be free

and if the country

was to be free

and to move forward

and prosper,

they had to forgive.

They had to,

in a sense,

pay themselves

the satisfaction

that justice requires.

And somehow or another,

that was able,

Mandela was able

to do that.

And we see that around us

all the time,

that people somehow

or another are able,

it's not forgetting

and it's not making excuses.

It's not saying,

well, you know,

apartheid wasn't really

that bad.

Can you imagine

Nelson Mandela

ever saying that?

Well,

apartheid wasn't really

that bad.

No,

he didn't forget it.

He didn't make excuses

for it,

but he forgave

and he was free.

But you see,

here's the thing.

In a sense,

in a sense,

forgiveness,

then,

is a bit of a mystery.

We know it can happen

and we know it's important

because when real forgiveness

happens,

we are free

from the evil

done to us.

Only the gospel

grounds

the mystery

of forgiveness.

only the gospel.

If that is true,

if on the cross,

Jesus,

God himself,

is dying for you

because he loves you.

Jesus died on the cross

to bear

the satisfaction,

in quotes,

that justice requires

for the inexcusable wrong

that you have done

and I have done.

In other words,

he died that you might be forgiven.

That is the gospel.

Because he loves you,

Jesus died on the cross

to bear,

in quotes,

the satisfaction.

He himself bears

the satisfaction

that justice requires

for the inexcusable wrong

that you have done,

that I have done.

In other words,

he died that you might be forgiven,

that I might be forgiven.

That's what's happening

on the cross.

And because Jesus is God,

right,

God himself

has invaded

his creation,

created order,

that is why you can see

that anybody can forgive.

If it ever is possible,

it grounds it.

It makes it

understandable

if God is,

in fact,

behind it.

He does it

on the cross.

That's just in terms of,

but the cross

is more than just

grounding it.

It's something

very important,

is that we,

in fact,

have been separated

from our creator

and we are in rebellion

against him

and we are separated

from him

and what Jesus does

on the cross

is more than just

ground my ability

to forgive.

He is the means

by which I am forgiven

by God

so that I can once again

become his child

and live with him forever.

And when,

the satisfaction

that Jesus does

for me on the cross

is for every wrong

that I have done

and every good

that I fail to do

from the moment

of my conception

to the moment

of my death

with nothing left over.

He knows it all.

He sees it all.

He forgave it all.

And it's on that basis

that I am made right

with God.

Not weighing my merits

but pardoning my offenses.

A couple of last points

then.

Here's the first one.

And if you want,

you can go online

and you can see this point.

If you,

I'm going to just say it

very quickly.

I just want to bring,

I've already gone 45 minutes.

I just want to bring it

to a close.

Here's the thing.

When you have done

something wrong,

you should never seek

to forgive yourself.

You need to die

to your pride,

humble yourself,

acknowledge the wrong

you have done,

repent,

seek to amend your life,

where possible,

make restitution,

and then ask the other person

for forgiveness.

Say it again,

but you can go online

and see it if you want

at Messiah.ca,

at church,

you know,

just Google Church of the Messiah

sermons on August the 25th.

It's a sermon called

The Man Who Can Forgive Sin.

Just say it again,

when you have done

something wrong,

you should never seek

to forgive yourself.

You need to die to your pride,

humble yourself,

acknowledge the wrong

you have done,

repent,

seek to amend your life,

where possible,

make restitution,

and then ask for forgiveness.

And here's the final point

I want to leave with you

before I pray.

Because of the gospel,

I will come to Jesus

for forgiveness.

I will proclaim to all

and sundry his offer

of full forgiveness,

and I will learn

to become one who forgives

for the good of the world

and the glory of the Lord.

I'll say that again.

Because of the gospel,

that's the good news

of what Jesus came to earth

to do and accomplish

for you and me on the cross,

all out of love.

Because of the gospel,

I will come to Jesus

for forgiveness.

I will proclaim to all

and sundry his offer

of full forgiveness,

and I will learn

to become one who forgives

for the good of the world

and the glory of the Lord.

Friends,

there's no time better than now

if you have not done it

to call out to Jesus

and ask him to be your Savior

and your Lord,

to thank him

for dying on the cross

so that the justice

that you could not bear,

that he would bear