The Flight to Forgiveness | Pastor Chris Kouba

I remember I was uh four years old in Chile.

We had a normal family.

Uh my brother and I, we were upstairs on the second floor of our house.

We were playing and I could hear noises downstairs.

It was my mom and dad having a fight.

A big argument.

Could hear screaming and yelling, broken things.

And uh next thing I know, my father was dragging my mom by her hair to the bathroom downstairs.

Filled the tub with water and drowned her.

I was in shock.

I did not know what to do.

Uh it was totally unexpected.

You know, me my brother and I bounced from house to house after my father went to prison.

And we ended up at this home where we were beaten and abused to the point where uh uh my brother and I ran away.

We lived in the streets for a while.

We traveled all over southern Chile by trains undetected.

We begged for food, we robbed, we we did everything that we could to make it.

After uh a while, we ended up in front of a judge in a city called Concepcion, which means new beginning.

And this judge told us that we could be adopted.

And at the time, my brother and I we did not know what that was.

I was 14 and he was 11.

And uh that's when the pennings came along.

This American family from uh southern Minnesota.

They had three kids of their own, not a lot of money, but they had this calling.

God was calling them to adopt.

Adapting to this new life was hard, especially for me.

I just could not trust anybody.

When my father killed my mother, it was such an impactful sin that impacted my life and family members for generations, and I could not forgive my father.

You know, uh I became a strong Christian at the time.

I was on fire for God.

And um, but in my prayer prayer life, in my prayer life, there was always this thing about my father that it's almost like God was reminding me, Francisco, you gotta forgive your father.

You gotta forgive your father, and nothing more.

There was no explanations or reasons why.

But uh I remember for years I would just argue with God.

I would tell him that man doesn't deserve forgiveness for what he did.

Um, and he went from that to, well, God, if you want to forgive him, that's fine.

You can forgive him, but I I'm not going to do it.

Beyond explanation.

Far too often, Lord, that evil is not just out there, it's up close.

Something that's been done to us.

Some way that we've been wronged.

Pray that today, God, you would bring healing.

I pray, God, that the Holy Spirit would break spiritual curses that have been generations in the making.

I pray that the word of God today would speak.

I pray that what we've been holding on to, we've been rehashing, we've been justified, be released.

Pray for freedom.

Pray for healing.

Pray for help.

It's in the powerful name of Jesus that I pray.

If you would grab your Bibles and open them up with me to Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 18 is where we're going to spend some time today.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

The vast majority of you have never experienced anything to the level of trauma and pain and difficulty of Francisco.

But if you get past the comparison, you know exactly what that anger feels like.

You're very familiar with the intensity.

Maybe for you it wasn't a parent.

Maybe for you it was a spouse.

Maybe it was a boss, a worker company.

Thought you weren't needed.

Suddenly everything you thought we brought value.

Maybe for some of you it was a friend.

You said they were gonna be there.

And the one time you needed them to be there.

They weren't there.

Maybe it was a coach.

Maybe it was a sibling.

Maybe it was a pastor.

People in your life that are supposed to take care of you, didn't take care of you, they abused you.

People who were supposed to protect you look the other way.

We're in a sermon series that we started last week called Forgiveness.

Last week we started by looking at what it looks like when you need forgiveness from the Lord.

And we said that if you expose your sin, God will cover it.

But if you cover your sin, God will ultimately expose it.

Today we're gonna flip it.

Okay, so what do you do when there's situations where somebody has wronged you?

Like, how are you supposed to handle it?

Like you forgive them.

That sounds great.

It's very, very hard, if not at times feeling impossible to do.

One key takeaway that I want you to get from the message today that I hope gets drilled into your heart.

It's this forgiven people, forgive people.

Forgive people.

This isn't just like a catchy line.

It's the gospel, it's the heart of the message we want you to walk away with.

And what I need you to know is this if you miss this, you will end up in a prison of your own making.

And it's such a difficult place to be.

Matthew chapter 18 begins to tell us a story.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

I want you to see this interaction.

Let's begin reading in verse 21.

It says, Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

As many as seven times.

Let me give you the context here.

Before verse 21, what you have is a situation to where Jesus is giving a teaching on what do you do if somebody sins against you?

And he's giving them all these steps that you should take in terms of how you can reconcile with each other.

And what I believe Peter is doing in this moment is what I too often do in my own marriage, where when Hillary is telling me something, I'm already formulating what I'm gonna say next.

I'm not listening to what she's saying, I'm just thinking about one response.

I think that's what Peter was doing right here.

He's hearing Jesus talk about all this stuff about what you're supposed to do if somebody sins against you and how you're supposed to respond.

But the whole time he's thinking for the gotcha moment.

And he says, How many times do I have to forgive him?

I get all that stuff I'm supposed to do, but let's just get down to it.

How many times do I have to forgive him?

You see, the religious leaders of the day they suggested that if you forgive someone three times at the end of the third time, you basically can walk away and you don't have to forgive him anymore.

So here's Peter, he says, seven times.

That's twice the going rate at the day.

He's expecting Jesus to be like, Peter, look at you, man.

And look at what he says in verse 22.

Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.

Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Some translations actually say uh seven times seven.

So whether it's 49 or whether it's 490, here's what I want you to see.

Jesus is not giving him a measured account.

Jesus is instead saying to him, Peter, I'm gonna blow up your question.

You're asking for the rule, wanting to know when the exception comes in place, and I'm telling you there are no exceptions.

What I'm asking you to do is to not just do something once.

What I'm asking you to do is to live a lifestyle of forgiveness.

What Jesus is trying to show us is that forgiveness is an event and a process.

It's an event and a process.

It's an event.

Think about this somebody sins against you, and then let's say they come to you and they ask you for forgiveness.

They say, I'm sorry, will you forgive me?

And in that moment, you have a choice to make.

And in that moment, what you can choose to do is say, Yes, I forgive you.

That event has happened, a transaction has been completed.

Move, done, go on.

But that's not what it means when he says 70 times seven.

What he's implying is that you not only forgive when it comes up, but you also forgive at 2 a.m.

when you start to thinking about it, and man, all of that intensity comes right back where it left.

What he's asking you to do is at that family event, whenever they show up and you just feel your blood pressure starting to rise, you're supposed to forgive them then.

Whenever their name gets mentioned and your stomach starts to turn over, you're supposed to forgive them then.

What he's suggesting is this forgiveness is ongoing.

Forgiveness is not just, okay, I forgive you and we're moved on.

Forgiveness is every time that this affects me, every time that this comes up, every time this rares its unexpected but ugly head.

I'm gonna choose to forgive you.

Francisco in the video came to Christ, and for 15 years he would pray the Lord's Prayer because he was taught that's what you're supposed to do.

And we get to that part of the Lord's Prayer that says, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And for 15 straight years, Francisco felt like the Lord was saying, You need to go forgive your father.

You need to go forgive your father, you need to go forgive your father.

What he said is so honest.

God, if you want to forgive him, you can.

But I'm not.

It was a process to be able to get to a place of even considering if this is something that he would do.

Keep going in the text.

I want you to see the parable that then gets mentioned that Jesus introduces to us in verse 23.

He says, Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.

When he began to settle, one would one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents.

Let me set up the stage for you so you understand what we're talking about.

10,000 talents was an astronomical sum of money, somewhere between 12 million and 1 billion dollars today.

The entire tax revenue of Galilee, where this was at the time, was only 300 talents, meaning this, the servant owed 33 times that.

This was an unpayable amount of debt beyond human capacity to resolve.

Look at verse 25.

And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had, and a payment to be made.

So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.

And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.

Notice what the servant asked for more time.

Have patience with me.

I will pay you everything.

He doesn't ask for forgiveness, he's asking for a longer payment plan.

He still thought that he could work his way out of this, even though there's no amount of lifetimes that could ever allow him to work off this debt.

What it says is that the master didn't give him more time.

He gives him something far better.

He cancels his debt entirely.

Not reduced, not restructured, forgiven.

The servant walked into the room with a debt beyond what he could ever pay.

And he walked out of the room, being totally forgiven, owing nothing.

This is the gospel.

Every person in this room has a debt before God that you cannot pay.

It's not that you've made a few mistakes, it's not that you need to try a little bit harder.

It's not that you had a bad week.

What I want you to know is this everything you've thought, everything you've done, all of it has been seen by a holy, infinite God.

And every single time you have sinned against him, it has caused there to be a debt that has been accruing, and that debt has been adding up.

And that debt is now so great you can't even get your head around how big that it is.

But God knew that you could never in your lifetime or a thousand more lifetimes pay off that debt.

But somebody had to pay for it.

And so God in his mercy sent his son Jesus Christ down to this earth.

He died on a cross.

And when he died on the cross, he took all of your sin and absorbed it on himself.

So now when God looks at you and your long record, he doesn't see everything that's on the ticket.

He instead sees at the very top a stamp paid in full.

Done.

Completely removed.

Why do I tell you this?

You've been forgiven millions.

Millions.

Look at how the story takes a pretty interesting turn next.

Verse 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, Pay what you owe.

So when his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me, and I will pay you.

He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.

Let's get some context what this second debt is.

A hundred denarii was about a hundred days' wages, roughly six thousand dollars in today's term.

That's not nothing, that's real money.

The servant had a legitimate grievance.

Someone genuinely owed something to him, but look at the contrast.

The first servant was forgiven millions, if not a billion dollars.

And now he's choking someone out over thousands.

He's demanding payment for a debt that's a tiny fraction of what he himself had been forgiven.

And notice the words in verse 29.

The second servant says, Have patience with me and I will pay you.

You recognize that?

That's what the original servant said.

He knows exactly what it's like to be begging, give me more time, give me more time.

But this time there's no mercy.

This time he sends him to prison.

What happened?

How could someone who just experienced that kind of mercy become so merciless?

This is what I call gospel amnesia.

The servant forgot what had just happened to him.

Or maybe he never really understood it in the first place.

He walked out of the throne room forgiven, but he didn't let that forgiveness change how he saw everyone else.

Here's what unforgiveness does: it makes you blind to your own story.

If I'm constantly thinking about what they did, I'm constantly going over in my mind all the ways they wronged me, they mistreated me, they abandoned me, they abused me, they neglected me, then I'm not able to actually be aware of the story of all that God has done for me.

Folks, I'm not saying that some of you haven't gone through horrible, traumatic, incredibly difficult things.

I'm not saying that's not true.

It absolutely 100% is true.

And you very you are a victim of some kind of sin that has been done against you.

But if you do not deal with this, you will end up not only being a victim, but you will victimize other people.

Because that bitterness costs something, it gets so deep down inside of you that everybody knows.

They don't know what it is, but they know something's going on.

Don't be around him today, don't be near her.

You're talking constantly about all these other circumstances when all along it's this root of bitterness that has been allowed to fester and to grow.

The servant had every right to be repaid, but what started as a valid debt became an obsession that destroyed him.

He forgot the principle that could have set him free.

Forgiven people, forgive people.

Look at how the parable ends in verse 31.

When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed.

And they went and reported to their master all that had taken place.

Then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.

And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?

And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers until they should pay all his debt.

So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

This is one of the most sobering verses Jesus ever spoke.

He said, If you receive my forgiveness, but you refuse to extend that forgiveness to others, something is deeply wrong.

Either you never really understood what you were forgiven, or you've forgotten it entirely.

And notice where the unforgiving servant ends up in prison.

Delivered to the jailers in torment turmoil.

Torment.

This isn't just about eternal consequences.

It's about what unforgiveness does to you even right now.

When you refuse to forgive, you don't punish the other person.

You imprison yourself.

It's like you walking up to a jail cell, walking inside of the jail cell, turning around, locking in from the inside, and throwing away the key, giving it to the person who basically is to control your emotional life.

And what I'm begging of you is to take a different approach.

Just think about it.

There's two ways that you can deal with the need to forgive someone else.

Two ways you can deal with forgiveness.

One, you can take payments on the debt.

You can withhold forgiveness, you can dwell on the wrong, you can ice them out, you can make them pay through your coldness and your bitterness.

Here's the problem: it will never be enough.

You'll still die waiting for what you're owed.

The research on this is staggering.

When people recall grudges, their blood pressure spikes, their heart rate increases, their stress hormones flood their system, even if the offense was a year ago.

They even found this study that said that 10 years after divorce, half of women and a third of men were still intensely angry at their ex-spouses, and that anger had become a dominant presence in their children's lives.

Which means unforgiveness doesn't just imprison you, it spreads, it's generational.

Bitterness is expensive, and the person that you have wronged has probably moved on.

So you can take the approach of just taking payments on the debt and making sure they know and making sure they feel it, and making sure that they're aware of how much they mistreated you.

Here's the reality: you're taking payments and you're making no impact on the debt, while at the very same time, the person that offended you probably doesn't even know or likely care.

Here's your other option.

You can make payments on the debt.

You can choose to forgive.

You can forgive them every time that it comes up.

Please hear me.

I'm not saying that that's not going to cost you something.

It absolutely will cost you something.

Forgiveness is never free.

But you can choose to absorb the cost.

You can choose to let that pain be transferred to you.

It is expensive, but it will and it will cost you your right to revenge, but it's also the only path to freedom.

Here's the good news.

You don't have to generate that forgiveness on your own.

When you begin to realize how much God has forgiven you, you see that He not only stamps your ticket paid in full, but He pours out on you an abundant, over-the-top measure of grace.

So that every time you're faced with a situation, every time when someone has wronged you, you have the ability not to somehow muster up the courage to be able to forgive them, but you can draw out of the overwhelming bucket of grace that God has given to you.

To be the way in which you can give that grace, mercy, and forgiveness to somebody else.

God didn't just cancel your debt.

So that you will never be overdrawn forgiving somebody else.

But because you've been forgiven so much more.

Let me be clear.

Forgiveness is not saying that it's okay.

Forgiveness is not trusting them again.

Trust is earned over time.

We're gonna talk about this next week.

Forgiveness is not mean reconciliation.

It requires two people to have reconciliation.

Forgiven people forgive.

The truth will either set you free.

Or if you ignore it, it will keep you in prison.

If you're struggling to forgive, it might be because you've lost just how much.

Go back to the cross.

Remember the debt that was canceled for you.

Let that reality calibrate how you see every hurt that's been done against you.

Francisco, every time you prayed, forgive us our debts.

As we forgive our debtors, God prompted him and pushed him.

Francisco, you gotta deal with this.

You gotta address this.

You gotta reconcile.

Take a look.

2018, I had the courage to go to Chile.

I was able to contact my father.

By that time, he was out of prison.

And I started talking to him.

I'd say, uh, father, I I'm not here to ask you for reasons as to why you killed my mother.

You know, I'm I'm I'm here to tell you that I'm here to forgive you.

God is calling me and telling me to do it.

And as difficult as it is, I'm doing it, and and I forgive you.

When I started to learn what um Christ did for us, crucified, and he didn't deserve it.

He didn't deserve it.

So I think that had an impact in me.

Just telling me, look at what I've done for you, Francisco.

Just because as I forgive you, you must forgive others.

And uh and you don't have to fully understand that, you just have to believe it, you have to trust God.

Because God, I think with me personally, He like He'll never give me the reasons as to why I need to do something.

He usually tells me what I need to do, I obey, and later I have a greater understanding as to why He's doing it.

And uh and I think that's a good thing because you know we want answers right away, but I think God's saying you gotta do it by faith, and you gotta trust me.

God demonstrated and showed me that uh in forgiving others, we we must act.

I had to take a step of faith in listening to God, obeying Him and what He was calling me to do.

Once I did it, I started to become a godly father, a godly spouse, a godly husband in terms of how I started to see my family, how to treat them, how to prioritize things.

And before that, I was I was not quite there, but I didn't see it back then.

It was just something that it was just an obstacle that was there, and I didn't completely know what it was, and uh not knowing what I needed to do.

So God told me that I had to take action and obey him and go to my father and ask him in person about that.

And uh that's when when when I think that the spiritual curse was just broken and I was just released.

Now I can say that you know I lived in uh in freedom, knowing that I can be a godly father, a godly spouse, and the the sense of the past, that unforgiveness and rage and anger is no longer a part of me.

God just continues to show his goodness and his blessings in this new life that I have, where has uh has everything to do with what God had in store for me out of what happened to me and that that ugly side of my life to what it is right now.

Favorite line: generational spiritual curse is broken.

Folks, what I want you to see is that whenever you forgive someone else, not only are you free, but it frees the people around you.

No longer do your kids have to inherit your bitterness.

No longer does your spouse have to live under the weight of your resentment, no longer do your friends have to wonder what mood you're in, because it's always hit or miss.

What God wants to do in your life today is not just help you get over it.

What God wants to do in your heart and your life today is to give you freedom to be radically different.

Francisco, he said he didn't know what it was, but he became a different father after he did this forgiveness.

God began to show him things and reveal things to him and work in his life, but it all started with this humility and act of saying, Okay, God, I don't understand it, I don't even agree with it, but I'm gonna be obedient and I'm gonna trust you.

Francisco's dad took away his childhood, took away his mom, took away his innocence, certainly took away his sense of security, but he didn't take away his freedom.

He got on a plane, went to that prison, and he said these powerful words, I forgive you.

Would you bow your heads and would you close your eyes with me?

I'll cross this room, please.

Many of you in this room have already received the forgiveness of the Lord.

But you are holding on to somebody else's sins.

It's destroying you, your marriage, your kids, your relationships, your health.

Today is the day to let it go.

Maybe you, like Francisco, need to take a step that you've been avoiding.

You need to make a phone call.

You need to write a letter.

They may not even be alive.

The person who hurts you.

Write that letter.

Maybe you need to get on a plane.

Maybe you just need to pray right where you are.

Release it to God.

Don't wait 15 years.

Don't wait 15 minutes.

The flesh wants nothing more.

The enemy wants nothing more than for you just to wait.

Ah, you got it.

It's under control.

Instead, the prison door is open.

And he wants you to extend that forgiveness that you've received.

Father, in Jesus' name, I pray that we would be a people today that release what we've been holding on to.

God, that thing that we're thinking of right this moment that the Holy Spirit is drawing us.

Lord, may we leave it at your feet and put it back every single time we're tempted to bring it back up.

Lord, we want freedom today.

We want life today.

We want hope today.

We ask in your kindness that you would give us the strength and the courage to do the hard thing, knowing that there is joy on the other side of that obedience.

Lord, may we not think about all the, but what about this?

May we just trust you.

We believe.

You're still trying to pay a debt that you could never possibly pay.

I want you to know this: there is no amount of good things that you could ever do to make your ledger clean.

The only hope you have is through Jesus, who died on a cross for you.

He rose from the dead, and today he wants to put paid in full on your account.

But you have to give him your life.

You have to put your faith and your trust in him today.

If you want to do that, I want to invite you to come forward in just a moment.

We're all gonna stand up.

That's gonna be your cue.

To come forward and talk to one of our team members up front or one of our folks at the bottom of the steps and just tell them you want to give your life to Jesus.

We want to pray a prayer with you.

You can leave here today knowing you've got a relationship with Jesus.

Others of you need to come and join United City Church.

God's leading you to make this your place to believe and to belong.

Others of you need to come and need to be baptized.

We want to talk with you, answer questions about that next step in your life.

Come and let us do that.

Maybe others of you need prayer.

I'm not trying to say in any way what I'm saying is easy.

But what I am trying to tell you is this is that it can happen.

God in his power.

The Holy Spirit moving and working in your life.

Give you freedom today.

If you need prayer today, maybe you've got another need.

Want to be prayed for.

Let us have the opportunity and the privilege.

Pray free.

Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

We can't wait to see you next week for any of our services at 8 30, 10, 11 30, or español at one o'clock.