Psalm 32 verse 1. A real short verse this morning. Psalm 32 verse 1. The Psalms are
right in the middle of your Bible. So if you flip over to the middle, you'll probably be
pretty close to the book of Psalms. Psalm 32 verse 1. We'll read the scripture, then we'll
pray. How joyful is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Let's pray.
God we come to you today and we thank you for the freedom and the privilege to come
and to hear your word. And I pray God that today you speak to us through this word. God
such a simple truth this morning, but God it is the truth that gives us hope that our
sins can be forgiven, dear Lord. God we come into this place with a lot of sin in our life.
There are things that we've done that we wish we hadn't done. There are things that eat
away at us dear Lord. We just feel the guilt and the burden of our sin. But I pray today
God that we would know that there is forgiveness of our sin through Jesus Christ. I pray dear
Lord today that we would be those who leave happy knowing that our sins have been taken
care of. So God I pray that you would hide me behind the cross today that I would preach
and teach in a way that brings glory and honor to you. That you take away any pride or any
nerves that I have today dear Lord that everything that is said here is for your glory. I pray
that your Holy Spirit would be among us today that you free us from the distractions and
the worries of this world. And for a few minutes dear Lord that you would just let us hear
from you that you'd work in our lives. And I ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.
Psalm 32 was written by David and it is believed by many that David wrote this Psalm not long
after he had sinned by committing adultery with Bathsheba. Not long after he had done
that he had Bathsheba's husband killed. So David knew what it was like to sin and David
knew what it was like to sin greatly. And so do you and I. We understand the burden
of sin and it's a bad feeling. It's a bad feeling when you know you have done wrong.
When you know you've cheated someone. When you know you've said something to someone you
shouldn't have said. When you know you've treated someone in a bad way. When you know
you've sinned against God. When you know that you just haven't done right. And those sins
they just they seem to eat away at us. And they seem to continually just be in our minds.
But there is hope in our sinfulness. Our hope comes from Jesus Christ and there's probably
no worse feeling in our life than when we struggle with that sin and the burden of that
sin. But anybody in this room that's ever put their faith in Jesus Christ and come to
that realization and come to that hope and come to that reality to know that our sins
have been forgiven. What a joy that brings to our soul. There's a there's a joy in there
that you cannot understand if you have not put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
So David knew this happiness. This happiness that comes. How happy is the one whose transgression
is forgiven. Whose sin has been covered. It's a beautiful thing to know that we can go to
God in the midst of our sin and know that through Jesus Christ that God will forgive
our sin. And God removes the weight of that sin instantly. Some of you have experienced
that today. Perhaps there are some of you today that have never experienced that. Perhaps
there are some in here today and you're not happy. Happy is the one whose sin is forgiven.
But unhappy is the one who's living in their sin. Who's living with their sin. Who hasn't
given their sin to God. So maybe there are some in here today and your life's just not
very good. You say I just want to be happy. I'm never happy. Well maybe the reason why
you're not happy today is because you have not trusted in Jesus Christ. Perhaps today
if you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ you would experience that forgiveness just
as David did and you would be one who would leave here today who are happy because your
sins have been forgiven. There's no better feeling than when someone forgives you of
your sins. When the Lord forgives you of the sins you have committed against him. Maybe
it's your spouse. You had an argument. You said some things you shouldn't say. Boy it's
a beautiful feeling when you sit down and you say I'm sorry and they say I forgive you.
Maybe it's some other family member. Whatever it may be. Probably every one of us in this
room has had some experience in our life where we have done someone wrong and we have felt
the guilt and the pain and the shame of that and it's a beautiful thing when that person
says I forgive you. It's a beautiful thing when people who hurt you and people you hurt
can still come to you and they can bring forgiveness to you and offer that in your life. And David
says you're happy as the man whose sins have been covered. That's the good part of forgiveness.
That's the part of forgiveness that we seek right. That's the part of forgiveness that
we long for. The part that is fulfilled by God when his word tells us in Psalm 103 verse
12 that our sins are cast as far as the east is to the west. What a beautiful thing that
is. What a beautiful truth that is for us today that we can come into this room and
you need to know today that you do not have to carry your sin with you today. You don't
have to carry the burden of your sin with you today that Jesus wants to free you from
that. That you might have done some really rotten things. You might have sinned in some
really great ways but I want you to know today the truth of the gospel is this that if we
would just repent of our sins, if we would say Lord Jesus I have sinned and I'm so ashamed
and I'm so guilty, that the truth of God's word says that God will forgive us of our
sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Isn't that a beautiful thing that we can come
here today and that we can have hope that in the midst of our rottenness that God doesn't
cast us aside but God brings us to church and he brings us to encounters with his words
and he brings us to encounters with other Christians who remind us the truth that we
are still loved and we can be forgiven and there are some in this room today that are
maybe struggling with your sin and you need to know today that there is hope in Jesus
Christ and if you would just repent. David has sinned pretty greatly. I don't know about
you and I but we sinned pretty greatly too. I don't know what your sin is but David committed
adultery and killed a man to cover it up. That's pretty bad. I suspect that many of
you in here have not topped that and yet what did David discover? He discovered that there
was forgiveness for his sins and for that David rejoiced. Even a sinner like David can
rejoice through the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. What about you and I this morning? And that's
the good part of forgiveness. That's the beautiful part of forgiveness is that we who are so rotten
can be forgiven of our sins. But then there's two sides to the coin of forgiveness. There's
the side that says we can be forgiven and we are forgiven and then there's the harder
part of forgiveness. The part where God says that we must forgive others. Jesus says in
Matthew chapter 6 verses 14 and 15, for if you forgive people their wrongdoing, your
heavenly Father will forgive you as well. But if you don't forgive people, your Father
will not forgive your wrongdoing. Now I don't know about you guys but that's a pretty strong
verse. That God's Word says that if we have been forgiven through Jesus Christ, that if
we forgive others our sins are forgiven but if we don't forgive others our sins will not
be forgiven. And that is strong language. Why would Jesus say such a thing? Well I'll
tell you why I think Jesus says that. I think Jesus says that for this reason. Because I
believe that anyone who has experienced the grace of God, if anyone has experienced the
forgiveness of God for our sins and we've experienced a relationship with God through
Jesus Christ, then it should be our desire to forgive others who sin against us. If we've
received such grace and such compassion knowing how rotten we are, how can we not have that
compassion on others? And I think what Jesus is saying is, is if you don't have any desire
and you won't forgive those who have sinned against you, then maybe it's because you've
never really been forgiven of your sins. Maybe you've never really experienced the compassion
that Jesus Christ brings. Maybe you've never experienced the grace of God. Maybe you don't
realize that God has given you great mercy. So Jesus gives us a hard command here. That
if we are those who claim to be forgiven of our sins, if we are those who have trusted
in Jesus Christ, if we are those who have confessed our sins and God has been faithful
to forgive us of our sins, then we must be a people who forgive others. And that's where
it gets hard because we can overlook all of our failures because as bad as we may be,
we're not quite as bad as that person who has wronged us. As bad as we may be, there's
still some reason why we deserve forgiveness. There's still some reason why God should have
compassion on us, but there is no reason that we should have compassion on those who sin
against us because they're not worthy of it. And that's a hard truth that the Bible tells
us here, is that if we have received the forgiveness of God, then we are called to forgive others.
And that is a hard truth to live by. That is a hard thing to live by. We look at the
example of Jesus Christ in scripture, which is the great example of forgiveness you will
ever find in this world. And we see that Jesus was so full of compassion and so gentle and
so willing for even those who nailed Him to the cross to come to forgiveness there at
the very end. And yet there are so many times in our life that people have wronged us and
we cannot bear to forgive them. We don't want to forgive them sometimes if we're honest.
We just, we don't even want to consider it because the things they have done are so rotten
and so evil that we just can't bear to give them an ounce of compassion. Now there are
a lot of things we hold on to that are trivial that we need to let go. Your buddy stole your
girlfriend in third grade. It's time to let that go. There are some trivial things in
this world that you need to forgive people for and you need to let that go. But I also
understand that not everything is that easy. I understand that there are times in life
that people really hurt us. They really hurt us deeply. It may be a parent, something they
did to a child, a child something they did to a parent, maybe it's your spouse, whoever
it may be, whatever the circumstance may be. I get it. There are people that hurt us and
it hurts. It cuts us to the core and the closer that person is to us, the more it hurts and
the harder it is for us to forgive them. But Jesus says if we do not forgive, we will not
be forgiven. I can't twist that and make it pretty and sugar coated in any way. These
are the words of Jesus Christ. And maybe the reason why you're unhappy today is because
you've not been forgiven. And maybe the reason that you're unhappy today is because you're
not forgiving other people in your life. You may have so much bitterness and anger and
hatred in your heart that that's why you're unhappy. Maybe you know the word of God and
you know what Jesus says and you try to live by the word of God, but then there's this
one part here that trips you up because this one part says that person that is so evil
that has done you so wrong that you need to forgive them. And you don't want to forgive
them. You want revenge because revenge revels in wrath. You want them to suffer. You want
them to suffer as you have suffered. And whatever it is they've done, no matter how trivial
or how great it is, there are times in our life that it's hard for us to forgive people,
but these are the commands of Jesus Christ. And maybe the reason we've got so much bitterness
in our heart today is because we have not experienced forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
And you've not experienced the forgiveness of those who have sinned against you. Perhaps
there are some people in here today and you're thinking, maybe you've got a list of people.
Some people do that. Boy, they got a list of people. They keep up with everything somebody's
done to them since first grade. You get one shot, you wrong me and I don't want nothing
to do with it. There's people who go to their grave holding grudges, as angry and as bitter
and as pitiful as they can be because they have hatred in their heart and they do not
forgive sin. And that hatred builds and builds and builds, but there is nothing more beautiful,
not just for the one who is forgiven, but for the one who is forgiving. And maybe today
we need to check our hearts and we need to check our life and we need to look at those
who have sinned greatly against us and we need to forgive them yet once more. How many
times? Seven times? Jesus said 70 times seven. I believe what Jesus said is there's no limit.
Should one who sins against you come to you and repent and ask for your forgiveness, Jesus
says forgive that person. And we've got those people in our life. We've got those people
and they've done us wrong and we've forgiven them and they time and again and time and
again and time and again and we want to say I'm done with that person. I don't want anything
else to do with that person. I don't want to see them again. I don't want to forgive
them again. I'm done. But then we come to church and we hear a message like this and
we're reminded of the words of Jesus and we're reminded of the compassion of Jesus, of all
the people who were out to get him, of all the people who were part of that mock trial
that voted to nail him to a cross, of those very ones that put the nails through his hands,
of the very ones who put the cross, I mean the crown of thorns on his head as he hung
on the cross and yet Jesus still up until his last breath had compassion and a heart
for forgiveness. And that's a beautiful thing and that's a hard thing. So we come today
and for many of us, most of us, maybe all of us, and we have to say God I need some
help because it's way easier for us to hold a grudge. It's way easier for us to want to
see people get what's coming to them. What we have to realize and we need to be grateful
for if we've put our faith in Jesus Christ is that God didn't give us what was coming
to us or else we would not be in this room today. That God forgave us again and again
and we sit in this room today and there are sins that we've sinned against God repeatedly
and we've said we'll never do it again and you're going to leave this room and in the
next week and in the next month and in the next year you're going to do it again. And
you're going to go to God and you're going to pour your heart out to him and you're going
to repent and God is going to forgive you because his word says that he does. And if
we've experienced that joy, if we're happy in that way that we've experienced forgiveness,
then how can we withhold that from other people? So maybe there are some people in your life
today that you need to forgive. Even your worst enemies, those who have hurt you greatly,
love them, pray for them, forgive them. I want to read a story to you this morning.
It's a relatively short story. A man by the name of Richard Wormbrand told this story.
Some of you have heard of him. Some of you may have not have heard of Richard Wormbrand.
He was a Romanian priest back in the 40s around the time of World War II. He lived in a communist
area. He was a Christian. He said communism and Christianity cannot, they just do not
go together. They do not go together. And because he preached the truth of the gospel
of Jesus Christ, he was in prison for that for 14 years. Richard Wormbrand has told many
stories of his imprisonment. He was beaten, beaten often along with other priests, pastors,
along with other Christian believers. You need to look him up. You need to read of his
story. He started a ministry called The Voice of the Marver. You can find that online. In
which he brings light to brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who are suffering.
Now he died in 2001, but the ministry still continues. And his stories are really unbelievable,
unbelievable stories of suffering that people go through. And a great example of brothers
and sisters in Christ that suffer and all the way up until death, they still do not
give up on Jesus Christ. And he wrote a story once, a story of forgiveness. And I was going
to sum it up to save time. It'll take three or four minutes to read it, but it's such
a beautiful story. I wanted to read it in his own words this morning. And I think it's
a beautiful example of what forgiveness is. When I was in jail, I felt very, very ill.
I had tuberculosis of the whole surface of both lungs. And four vertebrae were attacked
by tuberculosis. I also had intestinal tuberculosis, diabetes, heart failure, jaundice, and other
sicknesses I can't even remember. I was near death. In my right hand was a priest by the
name of Iskew. He was abbot of a monastery. This man, perhaps in his forties, had been
so tortured he was near to death. But his face was serene. He spoke about his hope of
heaven, about his love of Christ, about his faith. He radiated joy. On my left side was
the communist torturer who had tortured the priest almost to death. He had been arrested
by his own comrades. Don't believe the newspapers when they say that communists only hate Christians
or Jews. It's not true. They simply hate. They hate everybody. They hate Jews. They
hate Christians. They hate anti-Semites. They hate anti-Christians. They hate everybody.
One communist hates another communist. They quarrel among themselves. And when they quarrel
with communists with one another, they put the other one in jail and torture him just
like a Christian, and they beat him. And so it happened that the communist torturer who
had tortured this priest nearly to death had been tortured nearly to death by his comrades.
He was dying near me. His soul was in agony. During the night he would awaken me saying,
Pastor, please pray for me. I can't die. I've committed such terrible crimes. Then I saw
a miracle. I saw the agonized priest calling to two other prisoners. And leaning on their
shoulders slowly, slowly he walked past my bed and sat on the bedside of this murderer.
And he caressed his head. I will never forget this gesture. I watched a murdered man caressing
his murderer. That is love. He found a caress for him. The priest said to the man, You are
young. You did not know what you were doing. I love you with all my heart. But he did not
just say the words. You can say love. It's just a four-letter word. But he really loved.
I love you with all of my heart, he went on. If I who am a sinner can love you so much,
imagine Christ, who is love incarnate, how much he loves you. And all the Christians
whom you've tortured know that they forgive you. They love you. And Christ loves you.
He wishes you to be saved much more than you wish to be saved. You wonder if your sins
can be forgiven. He wishes to forgive your sins more than you wish your sins to be forgiven.
He desires for you to be with him in heaven much more than you wish to be in heaven with
him. He is love. You only need to turn to him and repent. In this prison cell in which
there was no possibility of privacy, I overheard the confession of the murderer to the murdered.
Life is more thrilling than a novel. No novelist has ever written such a thing. The murdered,
near to death, received the confession of the murderer. The murderer gave absolution
to his murderer. They prayed together, embraced each other, and the priest went back to his
bed. Both men died that same night. It was Christmas Eve. But it was not a Christmas
Eve in which we simply remembered the 2,000 years ago Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It
was a Christmas Eve during which Jesus was born in the heart of a communist murderer.
These things which I have seen with my own eyes. What a beautiful story of forgiveness.
That this communist guard beat this priest daily till he was near death. And when this
communist guard himself was near death, it was the very priest he had beaten daily that
came to his side and told him of the love of Jesus Christ. He told him that Christians
that he had beaten had forgiven him and he told him more importantly that God would forgive
him. What a beautiful example of forgiveness. So when we say, I can't forgive this person.
They've done this horrible thing to me. Really, what have they done to you? Have they beaten
you for years while you were in prison? Even so, what a beautiful example of this priest
to offer forgiveness. Chances are many of the things that people do to us as bad as
they may be and as hurtful as they may be are things that pale in comparison to this
story I just read. And yet in this story we see an example of forgiveness. Throughout
scripture we see a beautiful example of forgiveness in Jesus Christ. There is forgiveness for
you today if you'd repent of your sins and know that Jesus Christ loves you, he will
forgive you. And if you receive that forgiveness, if you're living in that forgiveness today,
then let us be those who will forgive others just as Jesus Christ has forgiven us. Let's
pray. Father God, we come to you. We thank you for your good word. I pray, dear Lord,
that you would help us because we struggle. God, life is hard and people do really horrible
things to us. And we're not excusing people, dear Lord. We don't excuse wrong behavior.
We don't sweep it under the rug. We don't pretend like it doesn't happen. But dear Lord,
we have to be able to forgive people, dear Lord. And so I pray that you would help us
to do that. God, as bad as the pain may be in this room today, and there are probably
some great pains in this room, I pray, God, that you would touch those hearts. I pray,
God, that they would feel your love and feel your grace and feel your presence. God, that
today, even in the midst of their hurt, they would find happiness. That they would be those
today that can echo the words of David, how happy is the one whose sins have been forgiven.
And dear Lord, knowing that our sins are forgiven, give us the ability to forgive those who have
caused us such pain. Dear Lord, maybe there are some in this room today and they don't
know who Jesus is. Maybe they've come to church a lot. Maybe they know some scripture. But
maybe today they tested theirself and they see that there is too much hatred and too
much unforgiveness in their life. And maybe they realized that maybe they've never experienced
the forgiveness of Jesus Christ this morning, God. I pray that if there are any in this
room that do not know who Jesus is, that have not lived in the grace of forgiveness, dear
Lord, that today that they would confess their sins to you. Dear Lord, I don't know what
they did. It's heavy. They know what they did, dear Lord. They probably some in this
room that think it's too much, but it's not, God. When Jesus died on the cross, his death
was sufficient to cover our sins as bad as they may be. God, if there are some who have
been struggling under the burden of their sin today and just living miserable, unhappy
lives, I pray today, God, that they would repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ,
that they would ask you to forgive them today, dear Lord, that they would know their sin
has been covered. Oh, how happy the one is, dear Lord, whose transgression has been forgiven.
I pray that they would find that happiness today. Dear Lord, maybe there's some bitterness
and hatred in our heart, even for some of those who are yours this morning. And maybe
that's the source of some of our unhappiness today. God, I pray that right now that we
would just kind of relinquish those judges, those grudges, dear Lord, and those bitterness,
the feelings that we feel, dear Lord, and that we would just give those to you today.
That we would even reach out to those, dear Lord, today, tomorrow, this week, who have
heard us, that we'd call them, we'd go to their house, and we'd just tell them those
words, I forgive you. Dear Lord, we may find that that is such freedom for us, and it may
be freedom for the other person, too, dear Lord. I pray, God, that we would know that
our relationship with you would be restored today through forgiveness, and I pray that
you would let that guide us to restore relationships through forgiveness ourselves for those that
we encounter in this world. Help us to follow the example of Jesus Christ. God, it's hard.
It's hard to forgive. But dear Lord, we know that you've forgiven us, so give us the ability
to forgive those who sin against us. And I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.