Forgive One Another

Lord God, we just thank you that we are in your house this morning.

We thank you that the songs that we have sung this morning help us to remember just exactly what you have done for us and are continuing to do for us.

And Lord, as we look out for one another this morning, we just pray, Lord, that you will help us to learn better how to serve you and how to serve and love one another.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

So we started our one another um message series last week, and this week um we're going to continue that.

And I am talking this morning about forgive one another.

Now, when um when I've needed forgiveness, it's you it's quite often because I've said something to someone without thinking about it.

I quite often have something in my head and it comes out of my mouth before I put the filter in place.

I've talked to Judith before and said, my filter was broken today and I did this.

Or I'll sometimes I'll get into the middle of a conversation and I'll realize the direction that the conversation's going, and I'll say, I don't really want to talk about that quite just now because my filter's not working properly.

And it gets it's it's like it's so bad that I will I was so bad, and I've been working on it, and I still slip up, but I have been working on it, I'm not as bad as I used to be.

But it was so bad.

I was out with a friend one day, and it was, I think we're I think we're on Holy Island, I can't quite remember, but I was with this friend, and she doesn't come to this church, but she is a Christian, and she we were joking about this thing where well she was well half joking about this thing when I open my mouth and the wrong thing comes out, and then we were at this craft, this craft fair, and I was and we're looking at different things, and then I wandered off, and she was looking at one thing and I was looking at another, and when we came out of the craft fair, she said, Ruth, I've got something for you.

And she presented me with this sign.

And for those of you who can't read it, it says, Just because it pops into my head does not mean it should come out my mouth.

I've still got the sign, it's not as prominent as it used to be.

It used to be on my desk actually at work.

Um but yeah, and so that's how bad it was.

But there's other times when I have experienced things done to me that really hurt, that really broke trust, that were really difficult to deal with, things that kept me awake at night, things that caused me to have nightmares, things that were so hard to deal with.

And you know, being the kind of person I am, I blamed myself.

Not I wouldn't, I didn't necessarily do anything, but I blame myself because that's the kind of person that I am, and um and I guess that's some of us do that as well.

I always think the worst about myself.

Something I've been something that I've always done.

But you know, during times when you've been hurt, you do tend to blame yourself sometimes.

For a time, it affected all kinds of things that I did.

I I kind of slipped into depression.

I was already depressed, but I slipped further deep into depression.

Affected me for a long time, and I struggled to understand how this had happened and why this had happened.

And I'm not sure what the other people were doing at the time, but I know I just ended up exhausted.

And you know, is it just me?

Has everybody else has anybody else experienced that before?

Yeah, it's not, it's not good, is it?

It's not easy and it's not good.

Uh but we've all I mean we've all said something without thinking, and we've all done something without thinking, but we've also experienced that on the other side as well, where we've been hurt and where we've lost trust with someone, or we've just really struggled to come to terms with the situation.

But we've also experienced times when we've been forgiven by other people.

Like, especially you know, if you're kids and you've you're forgiven by your parents for all kinds of things, aren't you?

So we've all experienced times when we've been forgiven.

But what about us forgiving those other people?

It's not easy for us, it's quite easy to hold on to it and keep going over it.

And let's be honest, we do that because we want to be right.

Yeah, we want to be right, so we hold on to things, and so we could be thinking, how can we forgive someone for doing that?

That really hurt.

Something that hurts so much, how can I forgive it?

How can I forgive that other person?

Who who says they even deserve to be forgiven anyway?

But yeah, have we forgiven other people?

You know, there's a really big example in the Bible about forgiveness, and we've sung about it this morning.

So let's just keep thinking about it as we're continuing to talk about it this morning.

Let's just continue to think about those songs that we've sung.

Don't let them just be songs that we've sung to this morning, but help us just to think about the words behind the songs.

I'm just going to um share this parable that Jesus gave.

And it's from Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

And I am going to read from verse 23.

Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.

As he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold was brought to him.

Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

At this the servant fell on his knees before him.

Be patient with me, he begged, and I will pay back everything.

The servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the debt, and let him go.

But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.

He grabbed him and began to choke him.

Pay back what you owe me, he demanded.

His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.

But he refused.

Instead he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

Then the master called the servant.

You wicked servant, he said, I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me.

Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?

In anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all the debt, all he owed.

This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.

Shh, that is deep, isn't it?

Forgive as we have been forgiven.

Now for the first servant, he owed lots and lots of money.

Many, many bags of gold.

Now in the Greek it says you have 10,000 talents, and a talent is wait, wait for this.

A talent was worth about 20 years of a laborer's daily pay.

20 years of a laborer's pay wages.

That would be millions of pounds in this day and age.

Millions.

Can't even comprehend how much that is.

And yet he asked to be forgiven for it.

It's beyond what I can comprehend.

I can't comprehend millions of pounds.

I've heard about it, but I can't comprehend it.

I think it's a lot when I've got a few hundred.

The second servant was a very small amount in comparison because he was his was just hundred denarii.

Hundred coins.

There's another parable in the Bible where it tells about a master coming to get people to work on his farm and he promised them a denarii a day.

So if he owed a hundred coins, that's only a hundred days pay instead of like 20 odd years old.

So a very small amount in comparison.

So the first servant, he experienced extravagant, extravagant forgiveness.

I already said I can't comprehend it, and I doubt you can.

But stop and think how much we are incredibly grateful for the forgiveness and the new life that we've received.

That was a beautiful new song that we sang this morning.

Just telling us, reminding us that we should remember those things.

And as we continue to think about it and to grow in our understanding, we should come to realize that it's a lot more than we deserve.

We're so grateful for it, but it's a lot more than we deserve.

It's only by God's grace and mercy.

I'm so, so thankful.

The payment for our sin was paid in full by Christ on that cross.

Thank you, Lord.

It's the only way that we can receive God's forgiveness.

Christ dying for us.

It's the only way we can receive forgiveness because we can't earn our salvation.

We can't earn it.

It's totally a gift from God.

That parable I just read, it comes just after Peter had asked Jesus how many times you should forgive someone.

And he went, seven.

Because, you know, in I was in my study and in my reading, people said that three times was enough in the Old Testament.

So Peter doubled it and then added one.

How many times should I forgive someone?

Seven?

And then Jesus went, no, seventy times seven.

I think I'd lose count before I got there, don't you?

So we should.

The point is that we should forgive one another because we have been forgiven so much.

And so now that we've thought about that and explored how much we've been forgiven, let's look at our one-anothers, because that's what we're here for.

We're talking about our one-anothers.

So I'm going to start with Colossians chapter 3, and I'm going to read verses 12 to 14, because I wanted to put that one verse in context.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Bear with each other and forgive one another.

If any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive us the Lord forgave you.

And over all these virtues put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity.

It's more like a command, really, isn't it?

Bear with each other and forgive one another.

It's more like a command.

It's not just something we're asked to do, it's not just a suggestion.

Bear with each other and forgive one another.

It's more like a command.

And this is in a letter that is written to one of the churches, which implies that being hurt and having to forgive someone happens in church as well.

And that is not ideal.

We might expect problems and difficulties in our day-to-day lives, we might have friction with our co-workers, we might, you know.

Our bus, when I used to go to work, our bus used to cause me great problems.

I used to get very angry because the bus was always delayed.

Something always used to happen on the bus.

My friends who I used to get the bus with say that those things don't happen anymore.

And then we don't have anything to write about anymore, Ruth.

So, you know, we all have problems and difficulties out there, but we don't expect them necessarily in here.

Because here, this is church, this is a place full of people who are disciples of Jesus, people who are apprentices of Jesus, people who want to live to become more like him.

And yet we still hurt one another, we still have disagreements and arguments.

Like I said, it's not ideal, but it's also not new.

Paul and Barnabas fell out with each other about John Mark.

And John Mark ended up not going on the missionary journey with Paul, and Paul took Silas instead because this disagreement was so big.

Paul and Barnabas went their separate ways, and Barnabas took John Mark, and Paul took Silas.

So it's not a new thing.

Also, we're reading the book of Philippians in our groups, and if you're not in a group, join a group.

Got to get that thing in.

We're just studying Philippians at the moment, and there's and part of and part of that letter, Paul talks about two people, and he pleaded with these two people to be of one mind.

Obviously, these two women had been quarreling in church.

And we know how a quarrel works, don't we?

People take sides.

So if these two ladies weren't on the work were quarreling and had taken different had different thoughts and different ideas, the church was going to just like there go with those people go with that person, those people will go with that person.

So it's not it's falling out and having to give one another isn't is not nothing new, but it's not ideal.

These few verses in Colossians, the section there that talks about leaving our old self behind, putting on our new selves.

Our new self is being renewed in knowledge and in the image of our Creator God.

The letter goes on to tell us to let the peace of God rule in us.

Bear with each other, it says there.

We've all got annoying little habits.

I know I've got some annoying little habits.

Alan's a saying to putting up with them.

We've all got annoying little habits.

And I often need somebody to be patient and to bear with me because those annoying little habits can be irritating.

And for those annoying little habits not to become something bigger.

Forgive one another.

Letting go of that feeling that someone has done some something wrong, hurt you, or offended you.

Forgive as the Lord forgives you.

Jesus is the example that we have to follow.

As the Lord forgave you, can we follow his example?

He cancelled a huge debt of sin.

A huge debt of sin on the cross.

We forgive others because we follow his example and we have been forgiven.

There's another one, another scripture in the Bible in Ephesians 4 and verse 32.

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

And that just follows on from another verse that says, get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

People quite often say, this verse starts, be kind.

People often say be kind, don't they?

And not just in church, everywhere you look, somebody says be kind.

When I'm scrolling through social media, I quite often come across a picture and it just says be kind.

Because people see the need in our world to be kind to one another.

We should be kind, compassionate.

Feeling the sympathy and sadness that somebody might need, somebody who is suffering, and needs someone to help them.

And again, just as in Christ, God, I forgive you.

We don't forgive to make things right.

We forgive because we have been made right.

So this forgiveness thing, what are you gonna do about it?

You kind of change the past.

It's already happened.

It's over.

But you can choose to forgive.

I've got some steps that we might like to follow when we're practicing forgiveness.

The first one is acknowledge the pain or the hurt.

Pray about it.

Be honest with God.

Forgiveness is not pretending it didn't happen.

It's not pretending that it didn't hurt.

So as you pray, acknowledge that you've been hurt and you need God's help.

Name the hurt and allow yourself to feel the grief, the hurt, the anger, honestly, before trying to make to move past it with God's help.

So acknowledge it and especially pray about it.

And then we choose to forgive.

We can't, it's not just something that just happens.

It's a choice, a decision that we have to make.

It's not an emotion, it's not something that just happens.

It means we're deciding not to bring it up again.

Not to bring it up over and over again.

It means that we're not gossiping about it with other people.

It's difficult.

It means not to dwell on it yourself.

And just as a reminder, I just want to remind you that forgiveness isn't easy.

It could take a long time.

But let's make that a good choice.

And then we need to guard our thoughts.

Because you will remember these things that have happened to you.

You will remember the hurts, and you will remember the anger, and you will remember how difficult it was.

They come back to you again and again.

And that's when you have another choice.

You remind yourself that you made the choice to forgive.

So you stop the thoughts.

Remind yourself that of the forgiveness that you've received from God and from other people in your past.

With God's help, try to set the hurt and anger aside every single time the memory comes up.

And then as I move on from there, I just want to talk a little bit about.

Forgiveness and reconciliation.

You can forgive someone entirely on your own.

That's your choice.

Even when they don't ask for it, even when they don't know that you've done it, even when they don't admit that they've done wrong, even when you might never see them again.

Reconciliation, however, takes two people.

Forgiveness requires you.

Reconciliation requires both of you.

This might be a bit controversial.

You see, when I was growing up, I thought when I forgave someone, then I had to forgive someone, had just to things had just to be back to the way they were before.

I think that was the way I was taught.

And so especially when I was in church places, I was like, people kind of the expectation I felt that I had was to forgive and forget.

Well, I find that hard.

I always thought that was what you should do.

And I'm just saying today, be careful.

Because reconciliation is on a whole different level.

This might be a little bit controversial.

Reconciliation requires trust.

Rebuilding a relationship, perhaps, requires a change from you.

Also requires the other person to change their behavior.

And trust isn't isn't easily rebuilt.

You can give you can forgive someone, but you sometimes need to maintain some healthy boundaries.

And that might just be that might just be always meeting in public with this person or not meeting on a one-to-one, but also make sure make sure somebody else is there.

Yeah, reconciliation is hard.

But boundaries in some cases are necessary.

Forgiveness is not acting like it never happened.

It's not about opening yourself up to someone to keep on hurting you, keep on doing those wrong behaviors.

It's not always about reconciliation or giving people trust back again and restoring the relationship to what it was.

It doesn't mean you can't set boundaries.

Are you going to trap yourself in those things?

Are you going to trap yourself in the anger?

Are you going to trap yourself in the bitterness?

Or are you going to take the key, open the door, and walk out of it and release yourself?

Because only you can do that.

Forgiveness is a process, as I said before.

It's a difficult journey.

I'm not denying that, I'm not saying that it's easy.

I'm not denying the fact that it's difficult.

You won't always get it right.

You may have thought that you've forgiven someone.

Only have it slap you in the face again.

But keep on forgiving.

Keep opening up the door to your own freedom that comes from forgiving the other person.

We all like to be forgiven when someone's something that we need from someone else, we like to be forgiven.

But we all need to learn and practice forgiving too.

Are we ready to stick to the process of choosing to forgive and guarding our thoughts when they become unhelpful memories to you that keep cropping up?

Forgiveness is not saying that the hurt doesn't matter.

It's saying that Christ matters more.

Jesus did not forgive us just a little bit.

God did not forgive us reluctantly.

He forgave us fully, freely, and released us into a new life.

When we forgive one another, we're reflecting the heart of Jesus, and we can experience the freedom that He intended for us.

Can we just pray, please?

Lord God, thank you that you have forgiven us so freely and deeply.

Help us as we acknowledge the hurts in our own lives.

Help us release those hurts to you.

Help us to forgive those we need to forgive.

Help us as we move through the process of forgiving to stop going over and over the situation.

Help us to make the choice to forgive no matter how many times we need to do that.

Be with each one of us as we learn to live together as a family here.

To forgive one another.

To be forgiving of one another, to remain thankful for all that you have done for us.

Help us, Lord, to forgive one another.

In Jesus' name.

And um, and first and foremost, like we're here, Judith.

I the team, like, we're here to support and love and care and cherish you guys and look after you and help you on this journey, but um Ruth said it.

This is forgiveness is not easy.

Some of you guys have been hurt more than just a little quarrel or a little you know, argument before the service one day fourteen years ago.

Like it goes deep.

But let me say this there is freedom, there is freedom from that burden, okay?

And um and I I feel like I've got a word for some of you, which isn't gonna necessarily be easy to bring, but I just felt like some of you guys have been pretending for a long time now.

Okay, just close your eyes for a second.

Some of you guys have been prepar pretending.

You've been pretending it doesn't hurt.

Whatever someone has done to you, you've been pretending that it doesn't hurt.

Some of you have been pretending that you've already forgiven them.

Pretending maybe even to yourself, maybe even to God, that you have let it go.

You've been pretending that you're okay when you're not, and um, and there's freedom, okay?

Um I believe the Holy Spirit can do a work in your heart this morning, and uh and Elena many months ago had a word for our community that it will be fueled by forgiveness.

Phew, imagine that a community fueled by forgiveness and love for one another.

I'm amazing.

So it's with the danger we run the risk of it's just becoming bitter and hard-hearted, and and I just I guess the challenge this morning is are you gonna do some deep work with the Holy Spirit this morning?

Are you gonna be honest and stop pretending?

So that's the challenge, and we're just gonna sit, maybe we'll just sit where we are for a moment, and you can get honest.

Pour out your heart to God, and and we'll be around at the end if you want to chat.

It might be a process for you that might take a little while, but we're just keen to support you in that.

But the challenge is there, hey, you know, we are called to be people who forgive.

And yes, that's hard, but that's the challenge.

And I guess as people in our church, I want us to be people who hear a challenge and just go straight to the Holy Spirit and say, Will you help me?

So let's just maybe sit with that for just a moment and then I'll pray.

Even the small things, Lord, we we want to honor you and Lord, it's hard and it's heartbreaking, but we we want to honor you.

So we're sorry, God, when we don't do this.

But Lord, I pray that Holy Spirit, will you move in people's hearts?

Will you begin a deep, deep work where people can get it right?

Start the journey of record of just making this work in their hearts and in their minds.

Will you help us?

Maybe this morning you need to forgive God.

Maybe you need to forgive yourself.

I don't know where you're at, but don't just push it down and forget about it.

Because there is freedom.

Amen.

Amen.