Forgiveness: The Oxygen of the Kingdom - Part 2: The Hard Work of Forgiveness | Dr. Craig H.

Good morning. Good morning. We're in a teaching

series this month that's focused on forgiveness.

We have a sister church in Manila, Philippines

that a number of our people in moving to the

Philippines have gone to. And I just got a text

this morning from one of the sisters that are

there. It's like, hey, look, we're in the same

series on forgiveness over there. So maybe it's

an indication that we all have a lot to forgive,

or maybe this is really the core of what the

gospel is. It's about forgiveness. What does

it look like to receive it and to give it back?

This morning, after I launched it last week,

we have a guest speaker that many of you will

recognize. And before I call him up here, let

me just tell a little bit about him. So Dr. Craig

and his wife, Rebecca, have been in pastoral

work as well as other ministry where they're

helping to equip leaders within churches across

the Southeast Asia region. And they spend, Dr.

Craig spends a number of his months here in Bangkok.

And so this church is kind of like his home church

away from home. And he came and he preached for

us in February. And so he's going to help take

the pulpit for the next two weeks. And then I'll

close it off at the end of the month. Good morning.

It is certainly good to be back with you. And

thank you for giving me the privilege to share

God's word with you this morning. Now this morning

we are in a series, a continued series of forgiveness,

and we're calling it the oxygen of the kingdom.

And if you remember last week, Phil had you breathe

in and hold your breath, and at first you were

comfortable with that, but then all of a sudden

the carbon dioxide started building in your lungs,

and then you just felt like you had to breathe

it out. And the importance of forgiveness in

our lives is absolutely crucial to our growth

in Christ. And so one thing you might not know

about me is that I have, I'm a scuba instructor.

And so one of the things that we have to teach

our students when they're learning to scuba,

do we have any scuba divers in here? Would you

raise your hand? Wow, we got a few. And one of

the things you have to experience when you're

learning how to scuba dive is an out -of -air

experience where your instructor turns off your

air for a moment and where you feel what it feels

like to not have any air and then where she turns

it back on so that all of a sudden you get to

experience, okay, you know, I get to breathe

and I don't have to go be with Jesus. But what

I want to share with you this morning is that

I'm going to give you a little bit of a... of

an out -of -air experience. I'm going to turn

off your air, okay? I'm going to turn off the

oxygen, and I'm going to show you a passage that's

pretty difficult in the Scriptures, and then

I'm going to turn it back on. But in order to

turn off that air, I'm going to share with you

something about myself. And so, because as I

was thinking about forgiveness, and I was thinking

about when people wrong us, I started thinking

about the hard work of forgiveness. And I started

thinking about the fact that I'm a sinner. And

that I'm a sinner that's saved by grace. And

rather than come up here and tell you a story

of someone who wronged me and that I forgave

them, I thought maybe I would just tell you a

story about someone that I wronged who had to

forgive me. And so you can see that I have a

doctorate by my name, and I will tell you that

I am educated beyond my intelligence. But I will

also tell you that I have some other letters

after my name, and they're not PhD, but rather

OCD, and ADHD, and PTSD. I have all three of

those disorders. And so I'm going to share with

you and be open and honest with you that my life

has been a life of extreme downs and extreme

ups. You know, I mean, my wife has almost died

on me three times, and I'm thankful that she's

here. You know, I will tell you that my triplets,

you know, they're doing great now. There was

a moment where I had PTSD because of a still

where I've had to go to counseling and yet I

did not know that I had OCD or ADHD or PTSD until

about seven years ago when all of a sudden I

was talking with a Christian counselor and they

started sharing with me some things and some

observations that they noticed in me and they

started asking me some questions and I'm like,

oh, wow. And I was diagnosed with those Ds. And

in being diagnosed, I went through a lot of counseling

and had to overcome a lot. But what I recognized

was is there were some things that, and I don't

want to blame it on the OCD or blame it on the

PTSD, but there were some things that because

of those disorders that I have that affected

other people's lives. And ways that I sinned

against others. in ways that hurt them. And one

of those people was one of those triplets that

God healed, my son. You see, I've got three daughters

and I've got one son. And my daughters never

had to be hard on any of them because I never

had to ask them to do their homework. I never

had to ask them to do their chores. I never had

to ask them to do anything. They just did it.

And I realized not all girls are that way, but

my daughters are. And so they were super easy.

But my son, on the other hand, I always had to

ask him if he did his homework. Yeah, I don't

have any homework, Dad. And I'm like, you know

what? They got this app from the school that

says that you haven't turned in your last 10

assignments. And I became to the point where

I started really overcoaching him. And rather

than trusting God and letting God do what he

was going to do in my son, instead, I allowed

my obsessive compulsive. I allowed my post -traumatic

stress nature to all of a sudden, you know, just

overcoach him in an overly intense way. And it

really affected him. Now, the interesting thing

is, is he's a great kid. He has the sweetest

heart. And he came into his own. I mean, he's

19 years old now. And he's a responsible kid.

I was always concerned that he was going to be

irresponsible, that he wasn't going to be able

to have a family because he wouldn't be able

to take care of them. And the reality is, is

I think he was just like every other teenage

boy. Now my son's 19 and I worry he's over -responsible.

You know, he's married at 19. He's got a full

-time job. He's a full -time student. He's a

full -time job working with special needs students.

He's a full -time student studying to become

a teacher. And not only is he married, but he

also has two puppies. And so you want to talk

about responsibility. This kid's 19 years old

and he's got all these responsibilities. And

you might say, see? You did a good job. Well,

no, God did a good job by his mercy and grace,

but the reality is that when we had some discussions,

there were things in which I deeply hurt him

because of my sin. And I had to ask for his forgiveness.

And so forgiveness is hard. Because not only

did I have to ask for his forgiveness, but I

had to forgive myself. How many of you dads know

what it feels like? And I bet you you do, because

I bet you there's a number of dads in here that

maybe were hard on one or two or all of your

children. And it still haunts you because you

think, I could have been there more for them

emotionally. I could have been less hard on them.

And you have these regrets and you can't go back

in time. You can't go back in time. You can't

undo it. All you can go is forward into the future.

All you can do is apologize and allow the Holy

Spirit to transform you for the future. But you

can't go back and you can't undo what's been

done. And so we're going to talk about the hard

work of forgiveness this morning. And as we turn

off the air, As we turn off the air, because

right now you're breathing in 21 % oxygen, you're

breathing in 79 % nitrogen, and imagine that

you're underwater with a regulator in your mouth

and all of a sudden your instructor turns off

your air and all of a sudden you breathe in three

breaths and then it just stops. And you start

to panic a little bit and then your instructor

turns that air back on. I'm going to turn the

air back on, but we need to talk about why it's

so hard to forgive. And the reason why it's so

hard to forgive According to the passage that

we're going to be looking at today in Luke chapter

Luke 17 · chapter mention

17, it is so hard to forgive because the church

itself is not made up of natural friends. It's

made up of actually natural enemies. You see,

inside the church, and the church is made up

of families, and the church is made up of marriages,

and the church is made up of people that oftentimes

somehow wind up together. and wonder how they

ever did. And so I'm going to read you this quote.

And I think that one of the things I love about

ECB is that ECB has people from over 70 countries.

And I think this quote is actually very appropriate

to this congregation. And I think this is one

of the best congregations that I've ever had

the privilege to be a part of. But there's a

commentator that I love named D .A. Carson, and

he says this. He says, the reason there are so

many exhortations in the New Testament for Christians

to love other Christians is because the church

itself is not made up of natural friends. It's

made up of natural enemies. What binds us together

is not common education, common race, common

income levels, common politics, common nationality,

common accents, common jobs, or anything else

of that sort. Christians come together not because

they form a natural collocation, but because

they have all been saved by Jesus Christ and

they owe him a common allegiance. In this light,

we are a band of natural enemies who love one

another for Jesus' sake. That is the only reason

why John 13, 34 through 35 makes sense when...

Jesus says, a new command I give you, love one

another as I have loved you. Christian love will

stand out and bear witness to Jesus because it

is a display, for Jesus' sake, of mutual love

among social incompatibles. You know, we're not

here because we all have the same interests.

We're not here because we're all from the same

country. We're not here because we all speak

the same language. We are here because of Jesus

Christ and because we have all been forgiven.

And as we think of what have we been forgiven

from, Because sometimes we think we're pretty

good people and oftentimes what happens is that

we think, well, I didn't do this and I didn't

do that and we live the Christian life and all

of a sudden we think we're doing better and better

and better but the cross just gets smaller and

smaller and smaller but the reality is is the

more that we see how sinful we are and the more

we see how much we need a Savior, the bigger

the cross gets and actually that's what God wants

for us is to see the grace of our Lord Jesus

Christ, to be rooted in the grace of our Lord

Jesus Christ. And so we understand that in today's

message from Luke 17, verses 1 through 10, that

Luke 17:1–10

Jesus is going to teach us something about forgiveness.

He's going to teach us why forgiveness is so

difficult and why we need it. He's going to teach

us what it looks like to forgive, and he's going

to teach us how we can get the faith. we need

to overcome our inability to fully forgive. And

he's actually going to show us that we actually

already have the faith, we just need to tap into

it. And so here's the question. The first question

that we're going to ask, and that is that we're

going to ask Jesus to answer, is why is forgiveness

so difficult and why do we need it? Now, just

stick with me for a second as the oxygen is getting

turned off, as the air is getting turned off,

and as you might start to panic, because sin

is serious. And sometimes I think that we don't

think about that in the church. Now, we know

that it's true. We know that it's true, but sometimes

we just kind of brush our sin underneath a rug

or we brush someone else's sin underneath a rug

and we tend not to think about what someone else

has maybe done to us because there are serious

sins that have been committed against some people

in this room. Serious sins. And you might...

Not even want to think about it because you just

don't want to bring up those memories because

you don't want to feel the pain of what someone

caused you. Or there may be serious sin that

some of you have committed in this room like

I just shared with you. Where you are so hard

on your children or you are so disrespectful

to your parents. And you just think, you know

what, I don't even want to think about that.

And yet in order to really understand and to

learn, about forgiveness, we have to understand

about the seriousness of our sin. Now, in Luke

Luke 17:1

17, verse 1, Jesus said to his disciples, things

that cause people to stumble or things that cause

people to sin are bound to come. But woe to anyone

through whom they come. So when you think about

that, woe to anyone through whom they come, what

Jesus is helping us to see is that whether we're

the perpetrator, whether we're the ones who have

caused others to sin, or whether someone else

has caused us to sin, and by the way, a lack

of forgiveness is a sin, that woe to anyone through

whom they come, and here's what it says would

be better to happen. It says it would be better

for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone

tied around their neck. You know what a millstone

is? It was a big stone that was used for grinding

up grains. And so it had a hole in the middle.

It was on a spindle. And ox would turn it around

in a circle to grind the grain. And it was very,

very heavy. And Jesus said it would be better

for them to be thrown into the sea. into the

ocean with a millstone tied around their neck

than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

Now, who are the little ones? Well, you know,

there's some interpretation right there, but

actually most commentators agree that the little

ones are basically anyone who's a child of God.

It would be better for that person who caused

one of those little children of God, whether

they're... five years old or whether they're

50 years old or whether they're 80 years old,

it'd be better for the person who caused them

to stumble to have a millstone tied around their

neck and to be thrown into the ocean. And they

wouldn't have a regulator in their mouth. They

wouldn't have a scuba tank. It would be absolutely

one of the most terrifying pictures that you

could imagine not being able to breathe. Now,

Let's turn the air back on. And as we turn the

air back on, I want you to be able to breathe

because God doesn't want you to experience that

kind of wrath. Instead, what does Jesus do? Well,

Jesus comes to the earth and he dies on the cross

for our sins in order to relieve us from our

sin, in order to relieve us from our guilt, in

order to relieve us from the punishment of our

sins. And rather than... putting extreme, intense

anger accompanied by a deep desire for vengeance

or punishment. Instead, he poured out his wrath

on Jesus Christ so that his wrath wouldn't have

to be poured out on us. And so, here's a question

for you. Why is it that when someone sins against

us, do we want to exercise wrath against them

when God himself has not exercised his wrath

against us, but rather poured out his wrath on

Jesus Christ. Now, maybe you're a parent this

morning and you're thinking, boy, when my, I

got, you know, I got three kids and sometimes

they just make me so angry. And you find yourself

not proud of the fact that, you know, when you're

dealing with your kids, when they're being disrespectful,

you're dealing with your kids that you feel like,

like, the fruit of the Spirit just goes out the

window, and that you're not loving, you're not

joyful, you're not peaceful, you're not patient,

you're not kind, you're not gentle, you're not

good, you're not self -controlled, and you feel

like me. And rather than responding in the way

that Jesus would respond, instead, it's like

you just want, you know, you want to take it

into your own hands, and rather than trusting

in God, you want to just exercise wrath on those

little rats, I mean, those little children that

you have. It's easy to step into that. It's easy

to step into wanting to dole out wrath when someone

does something that causes you to stumble, that

causes you to sin, that causes you to hurt. I

mean, I can tell you, even with little things,

when I got here on Monday, And I've been here

many times, but I was in another country. I came

here on Monday. All of a sudden, I'm in immigration

line. And there's all these wonderful immigration

booths, and they've got the immigration officers,

and every line has people lined up in them. And

some lines only have four people. Some lines

have eight people. Well, there's this one line

that has like 30 people, and there's one guy,

and he's clogging the whole little roped off.

area where everyone's standing in line because

he's waiting for this one line and I thought

you know I'm going to just very nicely say you

know sir there's many lines if you can go to

any of them and I said that I said you can go

to any of the lines you know you don't have to

just wait right there because he was just clogging

the whole line and and he goes he just looks

at me goes what does it matter and I'm like whoa

you know now I'm a dude all right when you shove

me My natural testosterone inside of me wants

to shove you back. And I wanted to say something

really nasty to him. I want to tell him why it

matters and tell him that he's inconveniencing

everyone and tell him that he doesn't have to

be so arrogant, you know, that he can just be

humble enough to just, you know, go to one of

the lines or let everyone through. But instead,

I had to preach this sermon this week. And so...

And I didn't want to have to ask his forgiveness,

and so I'm thinking, okay, what do I do? So I

just said, sir, I said, I understand. I said,

you know, we've all, you know, it's been a long

flight. And I just said, would you mind if I

go to that line over there? And he scowled at

me, and he stepped aside. And I walked there,

and then everyone walked behind me and lined

up along the lines. But, you know, there's many

times when I haven't responded that way. There's

many times when I would have taken an offense

like that and I would have returned to that offense

with an offense. I would have taken some even

slight little evil and I would have given back

not just a slight little evil but a lot more

evil and would have come on him with a way that

would have been un -Christ -like and that would

have demanded that I ask his forgiveness. And

there have been times when I have had to go and

ask someone's forgiveness. But you see, wrath

is an extreme, intense anger, often accompanied

by a deep desire for vengeance or punishment.

And sometimes we want to pour out our wrath on

others, even though Jesus has chosen not to pour

out his wrath on us, but rather allow God's wrath

to be poured out on himself. And so I heard Tim

Keller preaching once, and he talked about wrath.

And he said, you know, it's an old English word.

And there's two words that actually have the

same root and actually have a link together.

And one of those words is the word wreath. Now,

who knows what a wreath is in here? Raise your

hand if you know what a wreath is. You know,

at Christmas time, have you ever seen when you

take, like, you know, pine branches and you put

them together and you make, you know, you twist

them and you make them into a Christmas wreath?

Or think about the wreath of thorns that was

twisted and put together. and shoved on top of

Jesus' head in order to make fun of him for being

the king of the Jews. That's what a wreath is.

And wreath and wrath have some similarities because

when we allow anger or when we allow wrath to

control our lives, it's like we become twisted.

And it might just be that we're twisted for the

moment. We're twisted into a shape that we weren't

meant to be twisted in. And we allow ourselves,

if we allow ourselves to be twisted long enough,

well, you know what? We tend to stay that way.

Now, unlike, I remember when I was in elementary

school, kids used to turn their eyelids inside

out. I don't know if they still do that or not.

But you remember what your mom said? Don't do

that. They'll stay that way. Well, the problem

is, is that when we allow ourselves to become

twisted by anger, it really does. Make us stay

that way. And that's not the way that we're supposed

to be staying. The fruit of the Spirit is not

anger. It's peace. The fruit of the Spirit is

not wrath. It's peace. And so God doesn't want

us to be twisted by anger. That's why the Bible

says leave room for God's wrath because God's

holy. You know, He's perfect. We're not. So we

should not become twisted because his wrath would

be perfect, but our wrath is never perfect. Now

let's look at another word, wraith. Does anyone

know what a wraith is? Anyone remember that word

from the Lord of the Rings? Anyone see those

movies? You know, and was it Nazgul or something

like that, the wraith? You know, but a wraith

is an old English word and it basically is a

word for ghost. Now, when you think about a ghost,

according to legends, A ghost is a person who

dies, and because some wrong has been done to

them, rather than going on, they stay where they

died. They stay where it was that a wrong happened

to them, and they haunt that place. They haunt

that place, and they stay there reliving the

past. And when we allow wrath to control us,

when we, rather than forgive, think that we need

to pour out our wrath on others, what happens

is that that person who's wronged us tends to

live rent -free in our minds. That person who's

wronged us tends to constantly remind us of how

they've hurt us in the past so that they just

sit there reliving the past within our minds

and within our hearts. And God says, I don't

want you to live that way. I don't want you to

live with an angry heart. I want you to have

the fruit of the Spirit. And so we need to forgive

for our own good and for the good of others.

So now we turn the air back on. And we say, how

do we do that? How do we forgive for our own

good and for the good of others? Because God

never asks us to do something because he just

wants to put his thumb on us. He never asks us

to do something because he just wants to see

us suffer. He asks us to do what he asks us to

do because he always has our best interests in

mind. And he has others' best interests in mind

as well. And forgiveness is in the best interest

of ourselves and the best interest of others.

Let me explain. You see, the second question

says, what does it look like to forgive? And

as we ask this text what it looks like to forgive,

to let go of that wrath, we see that Jesus asks

us to do something interesting with that. To

rather than taking our anger and putting it on

someone else, and hurting them for hurting us,

he calls us to absorb their wrong inwardly into

ourselves. And let's talk about what that means

from what Jesus teaches today. You see, Jesus

says this. He says, so watch yourselves. Look

at Luke 17, verses, the first part of three.

He says, so watch yourselves. Now, it's interesting

because when he talks about sin and he talks

about taking a millstone and putting it around

this person's neck and throwing them into the

ocean, he says, instead of saying, okay, you

know, that person right there, yep, they deserve

it. He says, no, watch yourself. He says, because

the reality is, is I deserve to have a millstone

tied around my neck and to be thrown into the

ocean. You deserve to have a millstone tied around

your neck and to be thrown in the ocean. And

so we need to watch ourselves. We need to watch

ourselves because we're forgiven people. And

so if we're forgiven people, then why is it that

we have such a difficult time forgiving others?

Now, there's an author by the name of Miroslav

Volf and he, in his book Exclusion and Embrace,

he gives a famous quote and he says, forgiveness

flounders because I exclude the enemy, I exclude

my enemy, from the community of humans while

at the same moment excluding myself from the

community of sinners. You see, when someone does

something wrong to us, what we want to do is

we want to exclude, we want to exclude that person

from the community of humans. We want to say,

you know what, that person, they're not even

like, we don't even want to give them respect

of being created in the image of God. We want

to say, you know, that God created man in his

image, God created women in his image, but not

that one. Not that one. While at the same time,

we're excluding ourselves from the community

of sinners. You know, one thing I love about

the church is that the church is not a country

club for saints. It's a hospital for sinners.

And when we begin to understand that, Even when

someone has wronged us or even maybe we even

exclude ourselves from the community of humans

because maybe there's something that you've done

that you're finding yourself difficult to forgive

yourself. Or someone's done something to you

and you feel like, you know what? I just, I'm

just struggling here. To understand this is to

understand something very important. And that

is that we have to identify with the one who

has wronged me. We have to identify with the

one who has wronged me. And that's why we have

to watch ourselves. It means that we realize

that that person has sinned against me, but in

the same way that person sinned against me, I've

sinned against other people. And maybe not in

the same way, maybe in different ways, but I've

sinned against other people. And so do I really

want to have what I want that person to experience?

put upon me? Do I want that person that I want

to be punished, do I want to have that same punishment

put towards me? Because, by the way, when someone

sins against you, the only way that a punishment

can be paid, the only way that the debt can be

paid, and by the way, in the Lord's Prayer it

says, forgive us our debts as we forgive our

debtors, or forgive us our sins as we forgive

those who have sinned against us, and a debt

is a sin. Because there's something that's owed.

And what's owed is pain. I'm going to explain

that later on. But when someone sins against

you, the only way to repay that debt is for pain

and suffering to happen. And that's why we want

that person to experience the same hurt that

they experienced us. So if someone hurts us,

we say, ah, you know what? We feel like angry

against them. But then we see maybe they embarrassed

us. And then we see them get embarrassed and

we're like, okay, now they're embarrassed, now

they lost face, okay, now I can forgive them.

But that's not how forgiveness works. You see,

if we identify with the one who has wronged us,

we realize that all have sinned and keep on falling

short of the glory of God. That not only have

they sinned, but I've sinned as well, that we've

all sinned. But the second is, is that we have

to inwardly pay the debt of the one who has sinned

against me. Now Jesus is going to call us to

this, to watch ourselves. He's going to call

us to inwardly pay the debt of the one who has

sinned against me. Now what does that mean? What

that means is that somebody has to experience

pain and suffering. Now if I yell at that person

or I embarrass that person or I make them lose

face or I do something in retaliation or maybe

I don't even do something in retaliation but

they get sick and they get... something even

worse happened to them and I say, okay, now I

can forgive them? Because we think the debt has

been paid? But if we are willing to inwardly

pay that debt, if we're actually willing to forgive

people, if we're willing to say, you know what,

I should yell at that person, I should yell at

my kids, but I'm not going to yell at my kids,

what happens is, is inside we're the ones who

experience the pain. If someone embarrasses us

and we choose not to, embarrass them in return,

then we're the ones who experience the pain.

Now I'm going to explain this a little bit later,

but I want you to understand that every single

time that someone sins, that's called the debt,

and that the only way to repay that debt is through

pain and suffering. And you're saying, well,

man, this is not good. But we're going to see

our answer and we're going to see how refreshing

forgiveness truly is and why it is the oxygen

of the kingdom. You see, I'm staying at Zach

and Megan's house, Pastor Zach, and they have

a lovely house and they have a really fancy coffee

machine, espresso machine. And I know that it's

kind of Zach's pride and joy and he gave me these

instructions and he sent me like a video on how

to use it and everything. I haven't used it yet

because I'm afraid of breaking it. Because I

think if I break that thing, I don't want to

have to afford to pay for it. Because if it breaks,

someone's got to absorb the debt. But you know,

I know Zach well enough, and Zach and Megan,

they love Jesus, and so I know that if I break

their espresso machine, they're not going to

make me pay for it. They're going to absorb that

debt. And I don't want them to have to absorb

that debt, so I don't want to break their espresso

machine. But yet at the same time, I know that

Zach wants me to use that espresso machine. I

think it's called an espresso machine, not an

expresso machine, but that's how much I know

about espresso. But it's something where I know

he wants me to use it. So now I'm in this conundrum,

and that's the conundrum, that's the paradox

that we have in this church, is that all of a

sudden we don't want to hurt someone, and we

don't want someone to hurt us, so we just exclude

ourselves. And we're not part of a life group

or we're not part of a place where we're part

of a community where we can rub shoulders with

one another and be open with one another because

the church should be the safest place in the

world. And so we just kind of go, well, we'll

come to church, but then we'll just kind of stay

at a distance. But that's not the way that God

wants it either. But what God tells us and Jesus

tells us in his passages is there are going to

be times when people sin against us. inside of

the church and also outside of the church and

we can't just isolate ourselves. We can't withdraw

ourselves because part of being the church is

bearing one another's burdens. Part of being

the church is loving one another. Part of being

the church is being together even when we don't

have anything in common except for Jesus. And

so when things do happen because all ascend and

fall short of the glory of God and keep on falling

short of the glory of God because that's what

it says in the Greek, We have to be willing,

if we're going to forgive, to inwardly pay the

debt of the one who has sinned against us. And

I'm going to prove that to you in a few moments.

But we also have to then, and only then, once

we've been willing to inwardly pay that debt,

initiate seeking the highest good of the one

who has sinned against us. And that means that

now that we've dealt with ourselves, now that

we have forgiven that person and we've absorbed

the debt and we've said, okay, rather than yelling

at them, instead I'm going to realize that I

am a sinner and that I have wronged others and

in the same way that I have wronged others and

would like for them to forgive me, I'm going

to forgive this person and even though it makes

me hurt because they embarrassed me and I haven't

had a chance to embarrass them, so therefore

I'm still hurting, I'm going to absorb that debt.

And what happens is, is that we wind up and end

up being able to finally seek their highest good.

What does the Bible say? Love your enemies and

pray for those who persecute you. It says don't

return evil for evil, but rather repay evil with

what? With good. Love those. Love your enemies.

Pray for those who persecute you. And so Jesus

says, If your brother or sister sins against

you, rebuke them. Now, what does that word rebuke

mean? It doesn't mean that you just yell at them.

What it means is, is once you have watched yourself,

once you have been aware of your own sin and

that you've identified with them and said, you

know what, I'm a sinner as well and I do things

and I make mistakes. Once you have been willing

to absorb internally, you've been willing to

pay that pain, that suffering. for them on their

behalf, then you can seek their highest good

by going and talking with them. Now I will tell

you one thing that never works. What never works

is to go and yell at someone. Because when you

yell at someone, what are they going to do? They're

going to say, hey, you're yelling at me. I'm

not listening to a word you say. Because you

don't love me. You're yelling at me. But when

we go to that person because we have forgiven

them, now when we tell them, what they have done

to sin against us, we have a much greater chance

that they're going to receive that with a spirit

of love and that the Holy Spirit actually might

transform them and might bring healing to their

lives if they're a believer and might allow them

to become more like Christ or may, if they're

not a believer, allow them to see the beauty

of what it is to experience the forgiveness of

Jesus Christ and actually trust Him. You see,

it says, and if they repent, forgive them. If

they repent, forgive them. You know what, I'm

sorry. I don't want to do that. And you say,

but you know what? They said that and they said

that, you know, yesterday and the day before

that and the day before that. They don't really

repent. Their repentance isn't sincere. That's

not our job. Our job is not to judge whether

a person's repentance is sincere or not. Because

it says, even if, Jesus said, even if they sin

against you seven times a day and seven times

come back to you saying, I repent, you must forgive

them. Why? Because you want to seek their highest

good, but you also realize that it's in your

highest good not to be chained up by the bondage

of bitterness. And we're going to talk about

next week, God setting us free from the bondage

of bitterness. But what we understand is that

we have to be truthful with ourselves in our

own sin situation. And we have to realize how

much we've been forgiven by Christ before we

can be truthful with others. But in the same

way, we... Once we forgive someone, if it's a

serious sin, we need to go talk with that person

once we've gotten to that place. It would also

be not good to not talk with that person because

if you knew that that person was heading towards

their death and towards their destruction, if

you knew that that person was going to experience

some kind of extreme pain because of their sin,

isn't it our responsibility to warn them of that?

Now, here's a third question. How do we get the

faith we need to forgive? Well, the truth is,

is that we already have it. You see, you might

not know that you have it, but you have it. And

so we already have the faith that we need to

forgive. And in Luke 17, verse 5, the apostles

Luke 17:5

said to the Lord, they said, increase our faith.

If you want us to forgive people, even when they

keep asking for our forgiveness, even though

they're not changing, then you're going to have

to increase our faith. And what Jesus is saying

is, you know what? You already have what you

need. You already have the amount of faith that

you need. to do what I'm asking you to do. And

that's why Jesus says to his disciples, if you

have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can

say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted

in the sea and it will obey you. Now, he tells

a parable because all of these passages, we read

them and we go, what does that have to do? The

millstone around someone's neck have to do with

forgiveness, have to do with this next parable.

And let me share with you how this next parable

ties in. It says, suppose one of you, Jesus says,

has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep.

Will he say to the servant when he comes in from

the field, come along now and sit down to eat?

Won't he rather say, prepare my supper, get yourself

ready and wait on me while I eat and drink. After

that, you may eat and drink. Will he thank the

servant because he did what he was told to do?

So you also, when you have done everything you

were told to do, should say, we are unworthy

servants. We have only done our duty. So here

we have this situation where Jesus gives this

parable and he gives this parable of a servant.

And the servant, you know. He says, this is normal.

Now, we can't think of it like we think about

it in our culture because in this culture, a

servant was someone who borrowed some money from

someone and they said, you know what? In order

to pay back this money, I will serve you for

X amount of years until the debt is paid. And

all of a sudden, here they are and they're trying

to pay this debt. But what we learn from this

is our problem. You see, our problem with forgiveness

is this. is we are servants who are acting like

we are owners. We are servants who are acting

like we are owners. And what I could say is we

are sinners acting like we are God. And so the

solution is to see the ultimate owner. This is

what Jesus is trying to help us to understand.

If we're really going to deal with the hard aspects

of forgiveness and if we're really going to find

success in forgiveness, if we're going to have

the faith to have forgiveness be one of the predominant

characteristics in our lives, we have to see

that our solution is to see that the ultimate

owner, Jesus Christ, willfully became a suffering

servant to forgive our sins. That he was willing

to absorb the pain of our sin in order to seek

our highest good so that we could be forgiven

and spend the rest of eternity, the rest of forever,

forever with him. You see, the faith to forgive

comes by looking to Jesus and his substitutionary

suffering for our sins. Now, there's a passage,

I don't have it on the screen, but it's 2 Corinthians

5, 21. And it says, for our sake, God, the Father,

made Him, made Jesus Christ, His Son, sin on

our behalf in order that we might become the

righteousness of God. So for our sake, He made

Him to be sin who knew no sin so that we might

become the righteousness of God. What does that

mean? They call it the great exchange. That when

we trust Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior,

when we see who he is and we see the beauty of

the Savior, even if it's with the faith of a

mustard seed, even when we just barely can see

it, but we trust Jesus, what happens is that

we take all of our sins and we place our sins

on Jesus when he died on the cross 2 ,000 years

ago. And he pays for every single one of them,

your past sins, your present sins, and your future

sins. Every single sin you've ever committed,

Jesus paid for on the cross if you're trusting

in him. But what the passage also says in 2 Corinthians

5 .21 is that he gives to you all of his righteousness.

Meaning, every time he said yes to God and said

no to sin in his life on earth when he was 100

% God and 100 % man, he took all of that righteousness

and he puts it on you. And he covers you in his

righteousness so that when God looks at you,

rather than seeing your awful sin, he chooses

instead to see his perfect son. That's amazing

grace found in Jesus. That's what we should be

rooted in. Not rooted in bitterness, but rooted

in... The forgiveness that has come to us through

Jesus Christ, that not only did he bear our sins,

but he also gave to us his righteousness so that

when God looks at us, instead of seeing our sin,

he sees his perfect son. And that's rooted in

the substitutionary suffering of Jesus because

somebody had to pay the debt of our sin and the

only way to pay it was with pain. The only way

to pay it was with suffering, but rather than

making us suffer, Instead, Jesus chose to suffer

for us. There's a wonderful word in the Greek.

It's the word tetelestai. It's the last word

that Jesus ever spoke before he was crucified.

And when Jesus was hanging on the cross, before

he breathed his last breath, the last word he

said, and then he died for your sins and for

my sins, was tetelestai. which is packed with

meaning. It means it is finished. It is paid

in full. Jesus said, I paid for your sin in full.

I took on my body through my pain, through my

suffering, the pain and the suffering that you

deserve because I wanted your highest good, which

was to be with me forever rather than for my

wrath to be poured out on you. I absorbed your

wrath and I'm absorbing it and I'm paying it

in full. That's the love of Jesus Christ. That's

what Jesus has done for us. And so if you wonder

how you can forgive someone who's done something

atrocious to you, something horrible to you,

you did something horrible to God. You sinned

against him and yet he was willing to absorb

your pain in order. for your highest good, to

forgive you so that you could be with him. Even

if the person is not a believer, then you say,

how could I ever forgive that person? Well, you

can forgive that person because you can not pray

that they would rot in hell, but you can love

your enemy and pray for those who persecute you

and you can pray that God would actually save

them through the same gracious Savior that he

saved you through and that he saved me through.

No wonder they call him a savior. This is the

key to forgiveness. This is the kind of faith

that we need to have. And if you're here this

morning and you can't forgive yourself because

maybe you had a son that you were too hard on,

or maybe you're a mother right now and you're

just too hard on your kids, or maybe you did

something that you just can't take back, And

maybe the person that you offended won't forgive

you. You can forgive yourself because you are

forgiven. Jesus paid it in full. He didn't pay

it in part. He didn't ask you to make partial

payments. He didn't say you can pay over time.

He said, I paid it and I paid it in full. Let's

pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you now

and we thank you so much for the beautiful, beautiful

person of your son, your eternal son, Jesus Christ,

who was forsaken upon the cross so that we could

be forgiven. Who absorbed our pain so that we

would not have to experience eternal suffering.

We have been forgiven greatly and those who have

been forgiven greatly, can forgive greatly. So

thank you for giving us the faith. Help us to

see, help us to look at the person of Jesus.

And we pray that as we look at what Jesus has

done for us, that your Holy Spirit would transform

us from glory to glory to glory as we recognize

who we are in Jesus. And as we recognize that

you have been so gracious to us, so merciful

to us, to withhold from us what we deserve, to

give to us what we don't deserve. And instead

of choosing to look at our sin, you look at your

perfect son and you say, it's just as if we've

never sinned and just as if we've always obeyed.

Help us to be more like Jesus as we have trust

and faith. in what He has already done for us.

And we ask this in His powerful name. Amen. Thank

you for tuning in to the ECB Sermon Podcast.

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