Forgive Every Day

Good morning.

Um this Wednesday is the last night of groups and classes on uh for this session, anyway.

That's gone by really quickly.

But even if you haven't been on a Wednesday night, please come uh this week.

There's something for everyone and and all ages, child care for the little ones, and uh music in the coffee house from 8 to 9, so we can hang out afterwards.

Want to remind you that Easter is two weeks from today, is that right?

That's amazing too.

But uh uh as you probably could tell by the banner, we're just gonna have one big get-together at uh 10 o'clock, and so you probably want to get here a little early um that Sunday.

And if you can, uh we'll have end up having a lot of cars that need to park over at Lowe's, and Lowe's is really nice to let us uh do that.

But uh if you're able and would like to and can come early and uh can park over there, uh that would help.

Uh that way we'll have uh fewer families with kids that have to cross that uh street.

Um prayer in the prayer room afterwards this morning.

You know, if you came in worried or discouraged about anything, please don't leave that way.

Just uh stop in the prayer room with the prayer team, and uh I promise you'll feel lighter, and not only that, but God will be on the case.

And so that's good too.

Um thanks for your giving.

You know, we don't pass a pass a play, we've got the giving kiosk in the back, and uh we can also give online, and when we do that, it it uh it does a lot of things.

It really demonstrates our trust in God, and uh it's a form of worship, and it really allows us to be together and uh do what we do and all the things that we do to try to help those around us.

So thank you for that.

Let's pray.

Father, Abba, Father, Daddy, Father, we just praise you.

We thank you for adopting us as your kids.

Holy Spirit, we thank you for being our teacher and our counselor, and please teach us this morning, please uh speak into each of our hearts, and so we can all know that we left with uh something directly from you.

And Jesus, we uh we praise you, we love you, we thank you for teaching us how to pray.

It's in your name we pray, amen.

So we're taking a few weeks and we're talking about uh prayer, and we're specifically looking at the Lord's Prayer, um, which is found in the Sermon on the Mount.

And it's so familiar probably to most of us, we forget just how revolutionary it was at the time.

It redefined so many things, it redefined what our relationship is with God, that He's actually, you know, our Abba Father, the Aramaic word that uh we translate father, our our daddy father.

And uh such a profound shift in thinking for the people that that heard that um message.

And it also shows how simple it is to have a relationship with God and how simple it is uh to talk with God, that we don't need to impress him or impress anybody else with our spirituality.

We can just be ourselves and talk to our Abba Father, simply a child talking to our loving dad.

And so in Matthew 6 it says, pray like this Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy, may your kingdom come soon, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.

It's actually the song that we sing before the Lord's Supper.

But that's the whole prayer.

And two weeks ago we talked about give us today the food we need.

And today we're gonna talk about the second half of that sentence.

It says, and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

It's a different verse, but it's it's in the same sentence.

And the whole sentence reads like this Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

It's a small observation, but it's probably important that this is one thought.

One sentence, one thought.

And if we're gonna live a joyful, uh purposeful, fulfilling lives, there's two things we're gonna need each day.

We're gonna need food, and we're gonna need the ability and desire to forgive other people.

Forgiveness is such a key part of who Jesus is and what it means to follow Him.

Jesus starts with us asking God, our Abba, Daddy Father, to forgive us.

And there's some confusion and maybe argument over whether a believer in Jesus needs to consistently ask God for forgiveness when we mess up.

And the answer to that really is no and yes.

If we're talking about being saved and going to heaven, we wouldn't need to, because Jesus paid that price once, you know, for all time, backwards and forwards.

So in Hebrews 10, 10 it says, For God's will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.

But our Father wants to do more than just save us eternally.

He wants to have a relationship with us, an intimate relationship with us.

And he wants to train us and change us so we can help others.

So when I make a mistake, or even if I willfully disobey God, I don't have to bear that shame and that guilt.

I can just ask for forgiveness.

And we know that God forgets, but it's not really for Him, it's really for us.

We don't have to live in guilt, and we can just move forward with a fresh start, no matter what.

And then the other aspect is that we we also have a real relationship with God.

Sometimes with God we make things so spiritual that we can lose the fundamentals of a real relationship.

I probably ask Susan for forgiveness more than I asked God.

Um and usually it's small things.

You know, sorry I snapped at you, sorry I forgot to stop and pick something up, sorry I broke something or I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, um, that type of thing.

But it's actually very healthy in a relationship to admit that we make mistakes and ask for forgiveness.

I'm not worried about her divorcing me over breaking a glass.

It's not that.

It's just a normal part of a healthy relationship.

Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that.

Um it's true of any relationship, and it's especially true with our Abba Father.

You know, that when we uh disappoint or hurt or make a mistake, to say, hey, sorry about that.

And that's one part of it.

But the the second part's really even more important, and that is that when we ask God for forgiveness, he not only immediately forgives and forgets, but he helps us to change.

In 1 John 1, it says, if we claim we have no sin, we're only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.

But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.

This is huge because it's God that does the heavy lifting.

He wants to help us.

You know, when my son uh played little league baseball and he moved up a league.

It's always tough, you know, when you go to the next age and you're playing against older kids, and and uh so he went from playing really well to not being able to hit the pitching.

And so that didn't make me mad at him.

You know, I helped him.

You know, we went to the batting cage, and I bought a bunch of uh Wiffle golf balls, actually, and I pitched those to him for hours, figuring if he could hit the smaller ball, then he'd be able to catch up with uh with the pitching that uh they were throwing.

It's the same with God.

God is not mad at us when we fail.

He helps us.

He uh, no matter what the weakness is, no matter what the mistake is, he helps us.

You know, if it's an addiction to pornography, you know, we can admit that to God.

It's not like he doesn't know everything anyway, but we can ask for his help.

He's not gonna be mad.

He's gonna help us, whether it's anger or jealousy or materialism or arrogance or selfishness or weakness or whatever it is.

God wants to help us and he will cleanse us.

And then we end up having these almost out-of-body experiences where it's like, wow, I used to cuss people out in that situation, or wow, that used to make me really jealous, or wow, I can't believe I just gave them money.

Or, you know, whatever it is, it's like an out-of-body experience.

I had one of those this week.

This is kind of a weird story, but it happened this week.

Um, Susan I were talking about taxes.

You know, we're coming up on April 15th, and April 15th used to be my angriest day of the year.

It it just made me so mad because I worked really hard and the government wasted so much money, and um, and so I was just bitter and angry, and I'd write that check, you know, and uh and just be so mad about it.

And this is really off topic, but just so you know, I personally think that both economically and morally, taxes should be as low as they possibly can be.

Um and they're not, so that would make me that make me mad.

And then a couple things happened.

This was probably 15 years ago.

Um a couple things happened.

One is I got to uh visit different places of the world, third world type places, and it gave me a whole new appreciation for America and what a miracle it is and blessing that we get to to live here and how much we have and and and in in so many ways.

And at the same time, God changed my perspective on money, and and so I started understanding that it's all God's and that I can trust him, I can trust him to provide, I can trust him for everything.

And so I got to the point where I wasn't angry and bitter when I filed my taxes, I was actually thankful.

Um and then so this week, Susan and I are talking about taxes, and I said, you know, I like paying taxes.

And and she we both just like stopped and looked at each other and then laughed because uh it's like a 180, you know, it's uh, and I don't want to overstate that, but um the liking to pay taxes part.

But you get the point, is it God changes us, and we end up having these kind of out-of-body experiences.

Like, wow, did I did that really come out of my mouth?

Did I really say that?

Did I really think that?

Um and God's changing us in a lot more important ways than that, but that's just one this week.

But the point is, God changes us from the inside out.

And it's almost ironic because most of us have times when we doubt God.

You know, or maybe we'll hear somebody on the radio or somebody will say something and you know that there isn't a God, and we'll think for a moment, you know, is that right?

Am I fooling myself?

And our biggest proof is not gonna be going back through a bunch of evidences and all that type of stuff.

Our biggest proof is gonna be how God has changed us.

We're gonna say, there has to be a God.

Look how much I've changed.

Look what he's done inside of me.

Ephesians 3.20 says, God can do anything, you know, far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams.

He does it not by pushing us around, but by working within us, his spirit deeply and gently within us.

And so our Abba Father forgives us, not only that, but then he changes us and cleanses us.

And so our natural response is to forgive each other.

And Jesus tells a famous story.

It's in Matthew 18.

At that point, Peter got up the nerve to ask, Master, how many times do I forgive a brother or sister who hurts me?

Seven.

Jesus replied, Seven?

Hardly.

Try seventy times seven, which is only 490.

So if you've been married like five years, you might be past that.

He says, The kingdom of God is like a king who decided to square accounts with his servants.

As he got underway, one servant was brought before him who had run up a debt of a hundred thousand dollars.

He couldn't pay up, so the king ordered the man, along with his wife, children, and goods, to be auctioned off at the slave market.

The poor wretch threw himself at the king's feet and begged, Give me a chance and I'll pay it all back.

Touched by his plea, the king led him off, erasing the debt.

The servant was no sooner out of the room when he came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him ten dollars.

He seized him by the throat and demanded, Pay up now.

The poor wretch threw himself down and begged, Give me a chance and I'll pay it all back, but he wouldn't do it.

He had him arrested and put in jail until the debt was paid.

When the other servants saw this going on, they were outraged and brought a detailed report to the king.

The king summoned the man and said, You evil servant, I forgave your entire debt when you begged me for mercy.

Shouldn't you be compelled to be merciful to your fellow servant who asked for mercy?

The king was furious and put the screws to the man until he paid back his entire debt.

And that's exactly what my Father in Heaven is going to do to each of you who doesn't forgive unconditionally anyone who asks for mercy.

Wow.

He's kind of serious about that.

That we are all forgiven debtors.

Each of us.

God's forgiven, forgotten, and he wants us to forgive each other.

And you saw that story ended with a man in prison being tortured.

When we don't forgive, we are in a prison of our own making.

Choosing to be tortured, reliving pain and hurts and wrongs over and over and over.

And Jesus has handed us the key out.

Forgive our brothers and sisters in our hearts.

In Colossians 3, it says, make allowance for each other's faults and forgive anyone who offends you.

Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

Now when explaining forgiveness, I always come back to the same metaphor, so you probably have heard it.

Um, and so forgive me uh for that.

But when someone hurts us or or insults us or wrongs us or ignores us, it's like getting shot with an arrow.

You know, it's not bad enough that it kills us, but we're injured and we're in pain.

And if the arrow stays in there, it's gonna get infected and it's gonna get worse.

And so if we get shot by an arrow, what are we gonna do?

I'm not pulling this out.

They shot me.

They need to come over here and pull it out themselves.

Why should I have to pull it out?

I'm gonna wait until they feel bad enough about shooting me that they come over here and they apologize, and it better be a big apology and pull out the arrow.

Well, of course we want to do that because we don't control other people.

They may never feel bad about it.

And we pull it out right away, and it takes some effort and it hurts, but it beats the alternative.

And the reason this is so critical is that life isn't one arrow, it is a constant barrage of darts and arrows and an occasional spear.

And before long, literally, we're like pincushions, we're just so full of arrows.

And we can't relax, we can't move, we can't sleep, we can't love another person or hold someone because our arrows are constantly pushing against each other and it hurts too much.

And when we forgive, we are proactively choosing to pull the arrow out.

Let God heal the wounds, and then we can go on with our lives and live, really live the way God wants us to live.

And there's something else that happens when we forgive.

And this is this is really important.

It's probably not talked about much in church anyway.

But when we forgive someone, it allows us to seek appropriate justice with a pure heart.

We can we can kind of mess up ourselves when we read the Bible like it's a rule book.

You know, we're trying to figure out what what the rules are.

We might find a rule that rationalizes something that we want to do, or we might find something that we think is a rule that allows ourselves or someone to be hurt.

And that's what that's what religion does.

It looks for the rules.

Jesus' goal is pure hearts, and then pure actions will follow.

Okay, so the Sermon on the Mount's a good example because it's where Jesus does this teaching on prayer, you know, and he's talking to three different groups of people.

His disciples are there, normal people are there, and religious leaders are there.

And they tended to be self-righteous.

Um, and so Jesus is talking to everybody.

So to the normal people, he says, God blesses you when you're meek, when you're humble.

Your Abba Father loves you.

Look how he takes care of all the wildflowers.

He is definitely gonna take care of you.

But to the Pharisees, to help them, he had to shock them out of their self-righteousness.

You know, and so he would say things like, Stop praying on street corners, stop making such a big production about everything.

You know, when you're fasting and when you're giving and you're really just showing off.

He says, You think you understand adultery and you've got this whole system worked out.

But you know what?

If you look lustfully at a woman, you need to gouge your eye out.

He says, if you sin with your hand, you need to cut it off.

You pretend to have it all together.

Why don't you why don't you try this?

And then he goes on if someone hits you, turn your cheek, let them hit you again.

If someone wants your shirt, give them your coat too.

Don't ever say no to anyone who wants to borrow from you.

Jesus is using hyperbole to make a point to the Pharisees.

These are not new rules, and we don't take them literally.

Because if we did, there'd be a lot of one-eyed, one-armed guys in the room right now.

And so Jesus doesn't want us to literally always turn the other cheek.

Uh Paul's a good example.

For some reason, Paul caused quite a few riots.

And um we talked about this on the 4th of July, about whether or not God really does give us rights.

And um, and he does.

But in Acts 22, there's a story.

The commander brought Paul inside and ordered him last with whips to make him confess his crime.

He wanted to find out why the crowd had become so furious.

When they tied Paul down to lash him, Paul said to the officer standing there, Is it legal for you to whip a Roman citizen who hasn't even been tried?

When the officer heard this, he went to the commander and asked, What are you doing?

This man's a Roman citizen.

So the commander went over and asked Paul, Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?

Yes, I certainly am, Paul replied.

I am too, the commander muttered, and it cost me plenty.

Paul answered, but I am a citizen by birth.

The soldiers who were about to interrogate Paul quickly withdrew when they heard he was a Roman citizen, and the commander was frightened because he had ordered him bound and whipped.

At least three times Paul asserts his right as a Roman citizen, and he says, You can't do that.

You can't you can't try me this way, you can't hit me this way.

I've got rights as a Roman citizen.

And Jesus doesn't want us to literally always turn the other cheek.

If we can forgive, if we can forgive, we can seek the appropriate justice with a pure heart.

I've seen many situations where, I mean, especially where women have been abused as uh children or or as an adult, and at some point they're told that they need to forgive and put themselves back in some sort of interaction with the abuser, maybe a family get-togethers or or those types of things.

You need to forgive and get on with it.

You know, Jesus would never tell a woman that.

I mean, he has so much compassion, he spent so much time protecting women.

He would never say that.

Forgive, yes, pull that arrow out.

But God loves his kids.

He doesn't want to see you abused and beaten and mistreated.

But the key is that whatever actions need to be taken when someone does something to us, it can be fueled by love.

Love for ourselves, love for that person, love for others, not by anger or not by vengeance because we've forgiven.

To turn the other cheek.

I think he wanted to do exactly what he did.

Without anger or vengeance, but with love for his fellow man that was being oppressed, he stood up for justice.

We can forgive, and then whatever we do won't be out of anger or vengeance, it'll be out of love.

I might have told this story once before, I forget.

But we were remodeling our uh our house a few years ago.

And the and the guy was a Christian guy doing the work, and I wrote him a check to go get uh, it was actually to get a big TV to put down the basement, which was one of my man dreams.

And um so I wrote him the check, he went to get it, and he didn't come back.

And um and I called him, he didn't answer the the call, and I called him the next morning, he said, yeah, sorry, something happened, I'll be over there later today.

And he didn't come over later that day.

So I called him the next day, and uh finally I had to go over to his house and say, hey man, what's what's the deal?

And and he broke down crying and said that they were having severe financial problems, and he had actually spent that money and asked me if I could forgive him.

You know, and so I did.

I I I sincerely remembered this particular story that Jesus told about the debtor, and I thought, wow, God's forgiven me of so much, I'm gonna forgive him.

And so I did.

I got someone else to finish the work, and everything was fine until about six months later, I was reading the newspaper and I happened along the you know, the police report, the rest report in the paper, and this guy had just been arrested because he stole$35,000 from a family that lived in Bridgemill.

And I'm like, wow, that's sort of on me, part of that.

Um because I showed love to this guy, but I didn't think about the next person or the next um family.

And so sometimes the most loving thing is to forgive in our hearts and then take whatever appropriate action is necessary.

Um in that same situation today, I'm not sure, it'd probably depend on the situation.

I'd ask the Holy Spirit to show me what to do, but I would do something different.

Um, but it would be not out of anger, not out of vengeance, it would be fueled out of love for that person, but also love for other people that can be affected.

And so we can forgive, but still seek appropriate justice with a pure heart.

In fact, only by forgiving can we possibly clearly know what to do with a pure heart.

And finally, when we forgive, it just allows us to live with personal responsibility.

You know, we can't wallow in blame if someone wrongs us.

We just gotta forgive them and then we can move on.

You know, God heals that wound.

If it's a big thing, we might have to seek appropriate justice with a pure heart, but then we can move on, knowing God promises us that no matter what it was, he's gonna make it all work out together for our good.

And we can live with personal responsibility.

You know, the everything in my life is not caused by someone else.

You know, I've got a loving father that's gonna bless me, and we're gonna move forward.

Isaiah 43, it says, forget about what's happened.

Don't keep going over old history.

Be alert, be present.

I'm about to do something brand new.

It's bursting out.

Don't you see it?

There it is.

I'm making a road to the desert, rivers in the bad lands.

And so we know that our Abba Father has completely forgiven us, and that kind of breaks us.

You know, it's a very humbling thing for me to know how much there is to forgive.

It's a humbling thing, and it kind of breaks us.

And then God changes us, and it gives us the ability to forgive other people, which means none of us have to live in a prison of our own making, constantly tortured by reliving pains and wrongs and hurts and wounds.

We can forgive, let God heal the wound, and then we can walk out.

You know, and we can live a joyful future that our loving dad has for each of us.

So Jesus is good to teach us how to really live, how to talk with Him.

Jesus said, pray like this, and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

So we'll stop right there if the worship team wants to come up.

I want to take one minute each week while we're talking about prayer, because it's one thing to talk about something, and it's so much better to uh to do it.

And the Lord's prayer is so short, it just shows how simple communicating with our Father really is.

But if we can just take a minute, and maybe today, um I want to be surprised if all of us have someone we need to forgive, you know, for something big or small or or or whatever it is.

And so let's take a minute, uh, ask the Holy Spirit if we don't to show us maybe.

And um and then we can forgive them in our heart.

Um let's stand and and uh we'll get ready to sing one last song together.

Feels good to forgive, doesn't it?

Well, connecting with God is just as simple as as talking with Him.

You know, all of us are created in the image of God, and we and we have a spirit inside of us.

And when we put our trust in Jesus and we in our own words, our own way, you know, it might be forgive me, it might be help me, it might be I'm sorry, it might be save me, it might be I just want to follow you, or I need you.

When we put our trust in Him, you know, our spirit comes alive and connects with God's spirit, and then he starts changing us from the inside out.

And eventually, not just our insides, but everything around us uh changes.

So if you haven't ever done that, you could certainly do that today.

Let's pray.

Abba Father, thank you for today.

We do love you.

Just help us to have forgiving hearts and just uh changes so it comes, becomes a reflex for us, where our first reaction is just to always forgive.

And Father, please bless everyone here today.

Whatever anyone's going through, whatever anyone needs from you, please give that to them.

We just thank you.

We trust you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.