Forgive Us

Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.

And he said to them, When you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation.

If I haven't met you yet, my name is Pat Harden, and I'm one of the pastors here at Church of the Grove.

I I don't know if you know this about me, but I chose to move my family to Atlanta in the summer of 1990 from Jacksonville, Florida, and I am actually proud now to call the ATL my hometown.

I love sports, and I kind of wish that we had an NFL or an NBA championship to call our own.

But hey, we're maybe getting a little closer there with the Hawks than we were in years gone by.

But there is something about Atlanta that we can all be proud of, and that is this is the birthplace of Coca-Cola.

The Coca-Cola bottle is iconic.

I've even got one in my office with the Gator logo on it from when we won the 1996 National Championship.

And even without the Coca-Cola logo, you know that's a Coca-Cola bottle.

The headquarters of Coca-Cola International is here in Atlanta.

The museum, Coca-Cola Museum, is located here in the Metro Atlanta area.

And that's exciting.

This is a drink created in 1886 by a chemist named John Pemberton, right here in Atlanta.

That logo, Coca-Cola logo, is the second most recognizable symbol in the world.

And listen to their mission statement.

We want to have a Coke in arm's reach of everyone on the planet.

Man, what a global mission strategy that is, right?

However, there is another symbol that's easily recognized and is in fact the most recognizable symbol on the planet, which is the cross of Jesus Christ.

The most significant and easily recognized symbol in the entire world is the cross of Jesus Christ.

You know why?

It's because of what the cross represents.

It stands for forgiveness and redemption.

Let me ask you, has there ever been a time in your life when someone's done you wrong?

Maybe they've betrayed you, cheated you, lied to you, misled you, done you wrong, given up on you, gossiped about you, something horrible.

I think it's safe to say that all of us have had something done to us that has helped shape us into the people we are.

I think it's also possible that our response to that which was done to us has also helped shape us.

Think about this.

Think about a grudge.

What does it mean to hold a grudge?

Have you ever held a grudge?

How has holding a grudge against someone else shaped the person that you are?

We fantasize sometimes, or at least I do, about maybe getting someone back for something they've done to us.

For seeing them suffer or be harmed because of what they've done to us.

And sometimes I would even enjoy those fantasies.

I worked at the post office for over 20 years, so I promise you I'm speaking from experience.

Not that I ever planned out going postal, but I surely thought about it a couple of times.

I could imagine in my mind this person's coming toward me, and I'm thinking, man, what if I just put a little Hulk smash on them?

You know, just kind of let them have it a little bit.

In fact, I would sometimes imagine this so well that I would think my co-workers around me would be watching and cheering me on.

This boss, this offender who I felt had wronged me, would begin to stammer out words of apology, and I would simply turn around and walk away before he can ever get the apology out.

In my imagination, all my coworkers would begin to applaud me as I exited stage left.

But then I asked myself, does holding a grudge really work?

I mean, it might feel good to think about or fantasize about things like that, and it might even be briefly rewarding to just kind of linger over that for a few minutes.

But does it really work?

I'm skeptical as to the efficacy of holding a grudge, and I'll tell you why.

Because if you're like me and you've held on to a grudge for a certain period of time, that alone ought to be proof that it doesn't work.

Because it's still there.

It never goes away no matter how many times I think about it.

Some of you guys, if you're like me, have probably lost sleep.

You may have treated your family poorly, you might have literally even gotten physically ill because of holding this grudge.

I know I've gotten bitter sometimes from holding grudges.

Have you?

Are you making decisions based on something that happened to you a long time ago that you should have forgiven eons ago?

There's something sinister and evil about holding grudges against others.

Russ shared this with me.

He said, the longer you hold a grudge, the longer the grudge has a hold of you.

And then he said, the deeper you hold a grudge, the deeper that grudge gets inside of you.

Now some of you guys may have been carrying a grudge for a long time and it was a big deal.

And you still have trouble thinking about it.

But if you keep carrying it, it's going to become heavier and heavier until eventually you'll collapse under the emotional weight of that grudge.

So I'm praying this, and I believe all of our staff is praying this for our church at the Grove family.

We're praying that you will allow the Spirit of God to work in you and enable you to release the grip of the grudge through forgiveness.

For some of us, the wound is too recent or too deep, but I can tell you that the longer you hold the grudge, you're the one who's going to suffer for it.

Who suffers the most?

It's the person holding the grudge, not the person against whom the grudge is being held.

There's hope, however, and that hope is found in God.

You see, there's a God who stands ready to set you free from the grudge of unforgiveness that you've been holding.

Forgiveness is better than holding a grudge.

Which leads us to our big idea for today.

Forgiven people forgive.

Now I want to say that again, and I want you to think about it as we talk about where we're going with this message.

Forgiven people forgive.

We are in the fourth week of our series, Teach Us to Pray, where Jesus walks us through the Lord's Prayer.

But Jesus didn't intend for it to be that.

It wasn't this ritually memorized prayer that we repeated by rote.

It was supposed to be a guide for our prayer life and teach us how to walk in purity and righteousness with Jesus.

So read with me if you would, Matthew 6, verses 9 through 15, as Jesus says, pray then like this.

Matthew 6:9–15

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

This morning we're going to be continuing our series Teach Us to Pray.

Over the past couple of months, we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount.

If you've been with us, you know this.

We started in Matthew chapter 5, and yet we spent the past couple of weeks going through what is known as the Lord's Prayer, which is found in Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Today we're going to specifically look at verse 12 in the Lord's Prayer.

And that verse once again says, And forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.

We're going to begin with the cross, we'll look at another passage in Scripture, and then we're going to move into a very specific story at the end of grudge holding and unforgiveness.

Here's what many of you are thinking or may begin to think as I'm sharing this message with you this morning.

Yeah, Pat, but if you knew my story, I mean, if you seriously knew my whole story, if you really knew all that's happened to me, and so on and so on.

Listen, I want to tell you, we could probably all say that, but I also want to tell you how this forgiveness works, and then I'll show you an example as I share with you a story at the end of this message about how forgiveness works.

It starts by talking about the cross.

The cross is an ancient form of capital punishment reserved for the worst criminals, in which the person being crucified often died from asphyxiation because they were no longer able to push themselves up and breathe air into their lungs.

It was a slow, painful, humiliating form of public execution.

And it was intended to shame the criminal and possibly even their family.

The body was typically left hanging on the cross even after death as a deterrent to crime.

As a young man growing up in the Catholic Church, I remember genuflecting before the crucifix, hanging at the front of the church, and making the sign of the cross every time I went into the church before I took my seat.

That word crucifix actually comes from the Latin term crucifixus.

And it's where our English word excruciating is derived.

That term that describes the most horrible, unbelievable pain comes from the word crucifix.

Now the Romans popularized this method of using an upright pole with a transverse beam attached to form the letter T.

But Jesus, as we see him going to the cross, is actually depicted carrying the cross beam, that transverse part of the T, as most criminals were required to do when they were led to the execution site.

The stipes, this vertical pole, actually stayed in the ground.

And the crossbar that Jesus carried, known as the petibulum, was probably something that he was nailed to before he was attached by being hoisted up on that vertical beam.

I mean, that's awful.

That's horrible.

That's terrible pain.

The most significant difference of what we typically see portrayed in history is that Jesus was crucified on a rather large cross and somewhat elevated.

Because most of the time crucifixion, this ancient instrument of torture and death that dates back to the century, 6th century BC, actually had the criminal or the offender very close to the earth itself.

The Romans wanted to make sure that the crucifixion was extremely personal, and they did this for a very important psychological reason.

They wanted you, the public, to be able to get up close and see what it was like for people to be punished by the great Roman Empire.

They were saying, in essence, this is what will happen to you if you do not bow your knee to the Roman Empire and to the great Caesar.

This was to be this memorable message imprinted in your brain.

Now, when Jesus was crucified, it just so happens there was another message that was being sent by another kingdom that day.

And the message was this come face to face and eye to eye with the Savior of the world, your Savior, who has been beaten and battered and humiliated for a purpose.

What is the purpose you're asking?

I'll tell you, it's the purpose of us experiencing God's forgiveness.

Our Heavenly Father would give us forgiveness for our sins because of what his perfect Son endured in our place.

Oh, how great a love that the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the Sons of God.

Imagine what it would have been like to walk up face to face with the Son of God and come face to face with your own eternal existence that day.

In a real sense, we were there that day.

All of us.

Now the cross is still timeless, it's still personal.

God's grace has come to you.

God's grace is extended to you.

God's mercy is available to you.

And I don't care what you've done.

God makes his love and his personal presence available to you because of the cross.

Just think about that.

It doesn't matter.

I don't care what you've done.

What matters is what Jesus has done.

Nothing is greater than the death of Jesus on the cross.

There's no sin that trumps the message of Jesus on the cross.

So once you embrace and believe and begin to live by this event and this message, you're seen as God's child.

You're holy, forgiven, accepted, and yes, most of all, loved by the Father.

You are forgiven.

Romans 5.8 tells us this.

It says that we know God loves us because Jesus died for us even while we were still sinners.

There's something else that happens when we embrace the message of the cross.

God's forgiveness doesn't just flow to us from the cross.

God's forgiveness flows through us from the cross.

It actually flows out of us.

We're not just recipients of God's grace and forgiveness.

We are distributors of God's grace and forgiveness.

So when you understand the message of the cross and what happens when we embrace it and live it, then you begin to glimpse what I mean when I say forgiven people forgive.

The reason we forgive is as much for us as it is for the person we're forgiving.

Forgiveness begins to release the grip of this grudge that's been holding our heart and our spirit.

Forgiveness is aggressive and it doesn't allow for the holding of grudges toward others.

Now you may be asking, what does that mean?

Let me see if I can explain it this way.

We're going to go to Romans chapter 12, where Paul wrote some very inspired verses, 17 through 21.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

This is what it says: repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all.

And this is where it gets really interesting.

Paul says, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

That sounds great, right?

We'll all hold hands and sing kumbaya, but that's not what he's saying.

Listen to the next verse.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, which I must say is greater than the wrath of Pat.

For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

To the contrary, Paul writes, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.

Wait, what?

If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

Huh?

For by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.

He's saying forgiveness is active, but not the way you think.

You're not to exact vengeance, you're to enact kindness.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Which leads to this question.

Based on this passage, whose job is it to avenge you?

Is it yours?

Is it your job to avenge yourself?

Not according to this passage.

It's God's job.

So when you avenge yourself, whose job are you assuming?

That's right.

You're assuming God's job.

And I don't know about y'all, but I'm not God.

So let God avenge you.

Let go of the grudge.

And only then are you free to forgive others.

Forgiveness is not for the passive and it's not for the weak-minded.

It is an aggressive response to the cross and the gospel.

Think about this.

Forgiveness is a weapon against the enemy of God when it's active in the life of a follower of Jesus.

Wow.

So overcome evil with good.

Be an overcomer.

You overcome when you forgive and let God take control of your hurt and your heart.

Here's four steps that we can all take to help us become more forgiving.

The first, embrace God's forgiveness of you.

And remember that God's forgiveness comes from his love for us.

That's what Romans 5.8 taught us.

The second step, forgiven people, forgive.

Jesus said, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

We call that the golden rule.

Wouldn't you want someone to forgive you?

I would.

The third step is this: let God avenge you.

Now this is going to sound radical, but what if God's idea of vengeance is not the same as yours or mine?

What if God's idea of vengeance is the salvation of the person that you're holding a grudge against?

Wouldn't that be incredible?

And you become brothers and sisters in Christ instead of mortal enemies?

Here's the fourth and final step.

You are going to overcome evil with good.

And I know this because over 35 years ago, my oldest brother told me that I would never make it as a Christian.

He said, you'll be back to your partying lifestyle before long.

Years later, when I moved my family to Georgia, he recanted his statement and grudgingly admitted that he may have been wrong about me.

Last month, I was able to see that brother and several other of my siblings when I vacationed in Florida, and God gave me the opportunity to ask my brother and my other siblings to forgive me for the way that I had treated them when we were younger, for the mean things I had said to them, for the things I had done, and maybe even for the things I didn't do, like sharing the good news of the gospel of Jesus with some of them.

And each of them forgave me.

And what I found in that moment was that my own heart was changed as I was able to forgive them for some of the perceived wrongs that I had held on to for decades and decades of my life.

This was only possible because forgiven people forgive.

So won't you allow the Spirit of God to work in you and through you as you consider this?

I'm gonna read to you a story that came from the pen of Corey Tinboom back in 1972, and it serves as an example for all of us on how and why we forgive others.

Here's what Corey writes.

It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding, heavyset man in a gray coat with a brown felt hat clutched between his hands.

People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, and they were moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear.

It was 1947, and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with a message that God forgives.

It was the truth they most needed to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land.

And I gave them my favorite mental picture.

Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander's mind.

I like to think that that's where forgiven sins were thrown.

When we confess our sins, I said, God cast them into the deepest ocean, gone forever.

And the solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe.

There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947.

The people simply stood up in silence.

In silence, they collected their wraps, and in silence they left the room.

And that's when I saw him working his way forward against all the others.

One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat, and then the next moment I saw a blue uniform and a visored cap with skull and crossbones.

And it all came back with a rush.

The huge room with the harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the Center of the floor and the shame of walking naked past this man.

I could see my sister's frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin.

Oh, Betsy, how thin you were.

Oh, Betsy and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland.

And this man had been a guard at Ravensbrook concentration camp where we were sent.

And now he was in front of me with his hand thrust out.

A fine message, Fraulein.

How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea.

And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand.

Now he would not remember me, of course.

How could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?

Oh, but I remembered him.

And I remembered the leather crop swinging from his belt.

It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors, and my blood seemed to freeze.

You mentioned Ravensbrook in your talk, he was saying.

But since that time, he went on, I have become a Christian.

I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well.

Again, the hand came out.

Will you forgive me?

And I stood there.

I, whose sins had every day to be forgiven, and could not.

Betsy had died in that place.

Could he erase her slow, terrible death simply for the asking?

I mean, it could not have been very many seconds that he stood there with his hand held out, but to me, it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.

For I had to do it.

I knew that.

The message that God forgives has a prior condition that we forgive those who have injured us.

If you do not forgive men their trespasses, Jesus says, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.

So I knew it was not only a commandment of God, but as a daily experience.

You see, since the end of the war, I'd had a home in Holland for the victims of Nazi brutality.

And those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars.

But those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids.

It was as simple and as horrible as that.

And still I stood there with a coldness clenching my heart.

But forgiveness is not an emotion.

I knew that too.

Forgiveness is an act of the will.

And the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.

So Jesus help me, I prayed silently.

I can lift my hand.

I can do that much.

You supply the feeling.

And so, woodenly or mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one outstretched to me.

And as I did, an incredible thing took place.

The current started in my shoulder, it raced down my arm, and then it sprang into our joined hands.

And this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

I forgive you, brother, I cried.

With all my heart, I forgive you.

And for a long moment we grasped each other's hands.

The former guard and the former prisoner.

I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.

You know, perhaps you've never experienced that kind of forgiveness.

Perhaps you've never experienced God's love and God's forgiveness, but today you can.

Here at the Grove, we say it's as simple as ABC.

The A stands for admit, the B stands for believe, and the C stands for commit.

Let me explain what that means.

Admit means admitting that you're a sinner.

Romans 3.23 says that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

The B for believe means to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that Jesus died for your sins.

In Romans 6.23, it says the wages of our sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And then the C stands for commit.

Commit your life to serving Jesus by confessing him as the Lord and Savior of your life right now.

In Romans 10, 9 and 10, it says that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved.

For with the heart man believes and is made righteous, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Later in Romans 10, 13, it says, all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

I'd like to ask you right now, would you like to call upon the name of the Lord?

If you don't know what this forgiveness is like, are you ready to admit, to believe, and to commit?

If so, bow your head with me and let's pray together right now.

Father, I admit that I'm a sinner and that I fall short of the perfection that you desire.

I fall short of the plan you had for my life.

Please, Father, forgive me.

I believe that you provided a way for my sins to be forgiven.

And that is the way of the cross.

I believe Jesus, your son, who lived here on earth and lived a perfect life, died a sinless death.

And only because of his perfect sacrifice can I be forgiven.

So, Father, forgive me.

I believe.

And now I commit my life to you.

I promise to serve you all the days of my life.

Please accept me as I am and change me into who you want me to be.

I ask all this, Father, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for joining us this morning.