Good morning. Good morning. We're in a teaching
series this month that's focused on forgiveness.
We have a sister church in Manila, Philippines
that a number of our people in moving to the
Philippines have gone to. And I just got a text
this morning from one of the sisters that are
there. It's like, hey, look, we're in the same
series on forgiveness over there. So maybe it's
an indication that we all have a lot to forgive,
or maybe this is really the core of what the
gospel is. It's about forgiveness. What does
it look like to receive it and to give it back?
This morning, after I launched it last week,
we have a guest speaker that many of you will
recognize. And before I call him up here, let
me just tell a little bit about him. So Dr. Craig
and his wife, Rebecca, have been in pastoral
work as well as other ministry where they're
helping to equip leaders within churches across
the Southeast Asia region. And they spend, Dr.
Craig spends a number of his months here in Bangkok.
And so this church is kind of like his home church
away from home. And he came and he preached for
us in February. And so he's going to help take
the pulpit for the next two weeks. And then I'll
close it off at the end of the month. Good morning.
It is certainly good to be back with you. And
thank you for giving me the privilege to share
God's word with you this morning. Now this morning
we are in a series, a continued series of forgiveness,
and we're calling it the oxygen of the kingdom.
And if you remember last week, Phil had you breathe
in and hold your breath, and at first you were
comfortable with that, but then all of a sudden
the carbon dioxide started building in your lungs,
and then you just felt like you had to breathe
it out. And the importance of forgiveness in
our lives is absolutely crucial to our growth
in Christ. And so one thing you might not know
about me is that I have, I'm a scuba instructor.
And so one of the things that we have to teach
our students when they're learning to scuba,
do we have any scuba divers in here? Would you
raise your hand? Wow, we got a few. And one of
the things you have to experience when you're
learning how to scuba dive is an out -of -air
experience where your instructor turns off your
air for a moment and where you feel what it feels
like to not have any air and then where she turns
it back on so that all of a sudden you get to
experience, okay, you know, I get to breathe
and I don't have to go be with Jesus. But what
I want to share with you this morning is that
I'm going to give you a little bit of a... of
an out -of -air experience. I'm going to turn
off your air, okay? I'm going to turn off the
oxygen, and I'm going to show you a passage that's
pretty difficult in the Scriptures, and then
I'm going to turn it back on. But in order to
turn off that air, I'm going to share with you
something about myself. And so, because as I
was thinking about forgiveness, and I was thinking
about when people wrong us, I started thinking
about the hard work of forgiveness. And I started
thinking about the fact that I'm a sinner. And
that I'm a sinner that's saved by grace. And
rather than come up here and tell you a story
of someone who wronged me and that I forgave
them, I thought maybe I would just tell you a
story about someone that I wronged who had to
forgive me. And so you can see that I have a
doctorate by my name, and I will tell you that
I am educated beyond my intelligence. But I will
also tell you that I have some other letters
after my name, and they're not PhD, but rather
OCD, and ADHD, and PTSD. I have all three of
those disorders. And so I'm going to share with
you and be open and honest with you that my life
has been a life of extreme downs and extreme
ups. You know, I mean, my wife has almost died
on me three times, and I'm thankful that she's
here. You know, I will tell you that my triplets,
you know, they're doing great now. There was
a moment where I had PTSD because of a still
where I've had to go to counseling and yet I
did not know that I had OCD or ADHD or PTSD until
about seven years ago when all of a sudden I
was talking with a Christian counselor and they
started sharing with me some things and some
observations that they noticed in me and they
started asking me some questions and I'm like,
oh, wow. And I was diagnosed with those Ds. And
in being diagnosed, I went through a lot of counseling
and had to overcome a lot. But what I recognized
was is there were some things that, and I don't
want to blame it on the OCD or blame it on the
PTSD, but there were some things that because
of those disorders that I have that affected
other people's lives. And ways that I sinned
against others. in ways that hurt them. And one
of those people was one of those triplets that
God healed, my son. You see, I've got three daughters
and I've got one son. And my daughters never
had to be hard on any of them because I never
had to ask them to do their homework. I never
had to ask them to do their chores. I never had
to ask them to do anything. They just did it.
And I realized not all girls are that way, but
my daughters are. And so they were super easy.
But my son, on the other hand, I always had to
ask him if he did his homework. Yeah, I don't
have any homework, Dad. And I'm like, you know
what? They got this app from the school that
says that you haven't turned in your last 10
assignments. And I became to the point where
I started really overcoaching him. And rather
than trusting God and letting God do what he
was going to do in my son, instead, I allowed
my obsessive compulsive. I allowed my post -traumatic
stress nature to all of a sudden, you know, just
overcoach him in an overly intense way. And it
really affected him. Now, the interesting thing
is, is he's a great kid. He has the sweetest
heart. And he came into his own. I mean, he's
19 years old now. And he's a responsible kid.
I was always concerned that he was going to be
irresponsible, that he wasn't going to be able
to have a family because he wouldn't be able
to take care of them. And the reality is, is
I think he was just like every other teenage
boy. Now my son's 19 and I worry he's over -responsible.
You know, he's married at 19. He's got a full
-time job. He's a full -time student. He's a
full -time job working with special needs students.
He's a full -time student studying to become
a teacher. And not only is he married, but he
also has two puppies. And so you want to talk
about responsibility. This kid's 19 years old
and he's got all these responsibilities. And
you might say, see? You did a good job. Well,
no, God did a good job by his mercy and grace,
but the reality is that when we had some discussions,
there were things in which I deeply hurt him
because of my sin. And I had to ask for his forgiveness.
And so forgiveness is hard. Because not only
did I have to ask for his forgiveness, but I
had to forgive myself. How many of you dads know
what it feels like? And I bet you you do, because
I bet you there's a number of dads in here that
maybe were hard on one or two or all of your
children. And it still haunts you because you
think, I could have been there more for them
emotionally. I could have been less hard on them.
And you have these regrets and you can't go back
in time. You can't go back in time. You can't
undo it. All you can go is forward into the future.
All you can do is apologize and allow the Holy
Spirit to transform you for the future. But you
can't go back and you can't undo what's been
done. And so we're going to talk about the hard
work of forgiveness this morning. And as we turn
off the air, As we turn off the air, because
right now you're breathing in 21 % oxygen, you're
breathing in 79 % nitrogen, and imagine that
you're underwater with a regulator in your mouth
and all of a sudden your instructor turns off
your air and all of a sudden you breathe in three
breaths and then it just stops. And you start
to panic a little bit and then your instructor
turns that air back on. I'm going to turn the
air back on, but we need to talk about why it's
so hard to forgive. And the reason why it's so
hard to forgive According to the passage that
we're going to be looking at today in Luke chapter
17, it is so hard to forgive because the church
itself is not made up of natural friends. It's
made up of actually natural enemies. You see,
inside the church, and the church is made up
of families, and the church is made up of marriages,
and the church is made up of people that oftentimes
somehow wind up together. and wonder how they
ever did. And so I'm going to read you this quote.
And I think that one of the things I love about
ECB is that ECB has people from over 70 countries.
And I think this quote is actually very appropriate
to this congregation. And I think this is one
of the best congregations that I've ever had
the privilege to be a part of. But there's a
commentator that I love named D .A. Carson, and
he says this. He says, the reason there are so
many exhortations in the New Testament for Christians
to love other Christians is because the church
itself is not made up of natural friends. It's
made up of natural enemies. What binds us together
is not common education, common race, common
income levels, common politics, common nationality,
common accents, common jobs, or anything else
of that sort. Christians come together not because
they form a natural collocation, but because
they have all been saved by Jesus Christ and
they owe him a common allegiance. In this light,
we are a band of natural enemies who love one
another for Jesus' sake. That is the only reason
why John 13, 34 through 35 makes sense when...
Jesus says, a new command I give you, love one
another as I have loved you. Christian love will
stand out and bear witness to Jesus because it
is a display, for Jesus' sake, of mutual love
among social incompatibles. You know, we're not
here because we all have the same interests.
We're not here because we're all from the same
country. We're not here because we all speak
the same language. We are here because of Jesus
Christ and because we have all been forgiven.
And as we think of what have we been forgiven
from, Because sometimes we think we're pretty
good people and oftentimes what happens is that
we think, well, I didn't do this and I didn't
do that and we live the Christian life and all
of a sudden we think we're doing better and better
and better but the cross just gets smaller and
smaller and smaller but the reality is is the
more that we see how sinful we are and the more
we see how much we need a Savior, the bigger
the cross gets and actually that's what God wants
for us is to see the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, to be rooted in the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ. And so we understand that in today's
message from Luke 17, verses 1 through 10, that
Jesus is going to teach us something about forgiveness.
He's going to teach us why forgiveness is so
difficult and why we need it. He's going to teach
us what it looks like to forgive, and he's going
to teach us how we can get the faith. we need
to overcome our inability to fully forgive. And
he's actually going to show us that we actually
already have the faith, we just need to tap into
it. And so here's the question. The first question
that we're going to ask, and that is that we're
going to ask Jesus to answer, is why is forgiveness
so difficult and why do we need it? Now, just
stick with me for a second as the oxygen is getting
turned off, as the air is getting turned off,
and as you might start to panic, because sin
is serious. And sometimes I think that we don't
think about that in the church. Now, we know
that it's true. We know that it's true, but sometimes
we just kind of brush our sin underneath a rug
or we brush someone else's sin underneath a rug
and we tend not to think about what someone else
has maybe done to us because there are serious
sins that have been committed against some people
in this room. Serious sins. And you might...
Not even want to think about it because you just
don't want to bring up those memories because
you don't want to feel the pain of what someone
caused you. Or there may be serious sin that
some of you have committed in this room like
I just shared with you. Where you are so hard
on your children or you are so disrespectful
to your parents. And you just think, you know
what, I don't even want to think about that.
And yet in order to really understand and to
learn, about forgiveness, we have to understand
about the seriousness of our sin. Now, in Luke
17, verse 1, Jesus said to his disciples, things
that cause people to stumble or things that cause
people to sin are bound to come. But woe to anyone
through whom they come. So when you think about
that, woe to anyone through whom they come, what
Jesus is helping us to see is that whether we're
the perpetrator, whether we're the ones who have
caused others to sin, or whether someone else
has caused us to sin, and by the way, a lack
of forgiveness is a sin, that woe to anyone through
whom they come, and here's what it says would
be better to happen. It says it would be better
for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone
tied around their neck. You know what a millstone
is? It was a big stone that was used for grinding
up grains. And so it had a hole in the middle.
It was on a spindle. And ox would turn it around
in a circle to grind the grain. And it was very,
very heavy. And Jesus said it would be better
for them to be thrown into the sea. into the
ocean with a millstone tied around their neck
than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.
Now, who are the little ones? Well, you know,
there's some interpretation right there, but
actually most commentators agree that the little
ones are basically anyone who's a child of God.
It would be better for that person who caused
one of those little children of God, whether
they're... five years old or whether they're
50 years old or whether they're 80 years old,
it'd be better for the person who caused them
to stumble to have a millstone tied around their
neck and to be thrown into the ocean. And they
wouldn't have a regulator in their mouth. They
wouldn't have a scuba tank. It would be absolutely
one of the most terrifying pictures that you
could imagine not being able to breathe. Now,
Let's turn the air back on. And as we turn the
air back on, I want you to be able to breathe
because God doesn't want you to experience that
kind of wrath. Instead, what does Jesus do? Well,
Jesus comes to the earth and he dies on the cross
for our sins in order to relieve us from our
sin, in order to relieve us from our guilt, in
order to relieve us from the punishment of our
sins. And rather than... putting extreme, intense
anger accompanied by a deep desire for vengeance
or punishment. Instead, he poured out his wrath
on Jesus Christ so that his wrath wouldn't have
to be poured out on us. And so, here's a question
for you. Why is it that when someone sins against
us, do we want to exercise wrath against them
when God himself has not exercised his wrath
against us, but rather poured out his wrath on
Jesus Christ. Now, maybe you're a parent this
morning and you're thinking, boy, when my, I
got, you know, I got three kids and sometimes
they just make me so angry. And you find yourself
not proud of the fact that, you know, when you're
dealing with your kids, when they're being disrespectful,
you're dealing with your kids that you feel like,
like, the fruit of the Spirit just goes out the
window, and that you're not loving, you're not
joyful, you're not peaceful, you're not patient,
you're not kind, you're not gentle, you're not
good, you're not self -controlled, and you feel
like me. And rather than responding in the way
that Jesus would respond, instead, it's like
you just want, you know, you want to take it
into your own hands, and rather than trusting
in God, you want to just exercise wrath on those
little rats, I mean, those little children that
you have. It's easy to step into that. It's easy
to step into wanting to dole out wrath when someone
does something that causes you to stumble, that
causes you to sin, that causes you to hurt. I
mean, I can tell you, even with little things,
when I got here on Monday, And I've been here
many times, but I was in another country. I came
here on Monday. All of a sudden, I'm in immigration
line. And there's all these wonderful immigration
booths, and they've got the immigration officers,
and every line has people lined up in them. And
some lines only have four people. Some lines
have eight people. Well, there's this one line
that has like 30 people, and there's one guy,
and he's clogging the whole little roped off.
area where everyone's standing in line because
he's waiting for this one line and I thought
you know I'm going to just very nicely say you
know sir there's many lines if you can go to
any of them and I said that I said you can go
to any of the lines you know you don't have to
just wait right there because he was just clogging
the whole line and and he goes he just looks
at me goes what does it matter and I'm like whoa
you know now I'm a dude all right when you shove
me My natural testosterone inside of me wants
to shove you back. And I wanted to say something
really nasty to him. I want to tell him why it
matters and tell him that he's inconveniencing
everyone and tell him that he doesn't have to
be so arrogant, you know, that he can just be
humble enough to just, you know, go to one of
the lines or let everyone through. But instead,
I had to preach this sermon this week. And so...
And I didn't want to have to ask his forgiveness,
and so I'm thinking, okay, what do I do? So I
just said, sir, I said, I understand. I said,
you know, we've all, you know, it's been a long
flight. And I just said, would you mind if I
go to that line over there? And he scowled at
me, and he stepped aside. And I walked there,
and then everyone walked behind me and lined
up along the lines. But, you know, there's many
times when I haven't responded that way. There's
many times when I would have taken an offense
like that and I would have returned to that offense
with an offense. I would have taken some even
slight little evil and I would have given back
not just a slight little evil but a lot more
evil and would have come on him with a way that
would have been un -Christ -like and that would
have demanded that I ask his forgiveness. And
there have been times when I have had to go and
ask someone's forgiveness. But you see, wrath
is an extreme, intense anger, often accompanied
by a deep desire for vengeance or punishment.
And sometimes we want to pour out our wrath on
others, even though Jesus has chosen not to pour
out his wrath on us, but rather allow God's wrath
to be poured out on himself. And so I heard Tim
Keller preaching once, and he talked about wrath.
And he said, you know, it's an old English word.
And there's two words that actually have the
same root and actually have a link together.
And one of those words is the word wreath. Now,
who knows what a wreath is in here? Raise your
hand if you know what a wreath is. You know,
at Christmas time, have you ever seen when you
take, like, you know, pine branches and you put
them together and you make, you know, you twist
them and you make them into a Christmas wreath?
Or think about the wreath of thorns that was
twisted and put together. and shoved on top of
Jesus' head in order to make fun of him for being
the king of the Jews. That's what a wreath is.
And wreath and wrath have some similarities because
when we allow anger or when we allow wrath to
control our lives, it's like we become twisted.
And it might just be that we're twisted for the
moment. We're twisted into a shape that we weren't
meant to be twisted in. And we allow ourselves,
if we allow ourselves to be twisted long enough,
well, you know what? We tend to stay that way.
Now, unlike, I remember when I was in elementary
school, kids used to turn their eyelids inside
out. I don't know if they still do that or not.
But you remember what your mom said? Don't do
that. They'll stay that way. Well, the problem
is, is that when we allow ourselves to become
twisted by anger, it really does. Make us stay
that way. And that's not the way that we're supposed
to be staying. The fruit of the Spirit is not
anger. It's peace. The fruit of the Spirit is
not wrath. It's peace. And so God doesn't want
us to be twisted by anger. That's why the Bible
says leave room for God's wrath because God's
holy. You know, He's perfect. We're not. So we
should not become twisted because his wrath would
be perfect, but our wrath is never perfect. Now
let's look at another word, wraith. Does anyone
know what a wraith is? Anyone remember that word
from the Lord of the Rings? Anyone see those
movies? You know, and was it Nazgul or something
like that, the wraith? You know, but a wraith
is an old English word and it basically is a
word for ghost. Now, when you think about a ghost,
according to legends, A ghost is a person who
dies, and because some wrong has been done to
them, rather than going on, they stay where they
died. They stay where it was that a wrong happened
to them, and they haunt that place. They haunt
that place, and they stay there reliving the
past. And when we allow wrath to control us,
when we, rather than forgive, think that we need
to pour out our wrath on others, what happens
is that that person who's wronged us tends to
live rent -free in our minds. That person who's
wronged us tends to constantly remind us of how
they've hurt us in the past so that they just
sit there reliving the past within our minds
and within our hearts. And God says, I don't
want you to live that way. I don't want you to
live with an angry heart. I want you to have
the fruit of the Spirit. And so we need to forgive
for our own good and for the good of others.
So now we turn the air back on. And we say, how
do we do that? How do we forgive for our own
good and for the good of others? Because God
never asks us to do something because he just
wants to put his thumb on us. He never asks us
to do something because he just wants to see
us suffer. He asks us to do what he asks us to
do because he always has our best interests in
mind. And he has others' best interests in mind
as well. And forgiveness is in the best interest
of ourselves and the best interest of others.
Let me explain. You see, the second question
says, what does it look like to forgive? And
as we ask this text what it looks like to forgive,
to let go of that wrath, we see that Jesus asks
us to do something interesting with that. To
rather than taking our anger and putting it on
someone else, and hurting them for hurting us,
he calls us to absorb their wrong inwardly into
ourselves. And let's talk about what that means
from what Jesus teaches today. You see, Jesus
says this. He says, so watch yourselves. Look
at Luke 17, verses, the first part of three.
He says, so watch yourselves. Now, it's interesting
because when he talks about sin and he talks
about taking a millstone and putting it around
this person's neck and throwing them into the
ocean, he says, instead of saying, okay, you
know, that person right there, yep, they deserve
it. He says, no, watch yourself. He says, because
the reality is, is I deserve to have a millstone
tied around my neck and to be thrown into the
ocean. You deserve to have a millstone tied around
your neck and to be thrown in the ocean. And
so we need to watch ourselves. We need to watch
ourselves because we're forgiven people. And
so if we're forgiven people, then why is it that
we have such a difficult time forgiving others?
Now, there's an author by the name of Miroslav
Volf and he, in his book Exclusion and Embrace,
he gives a famous quote and he says, forgiveness
flounders because I exclude the enemy, I exclude
my enemy, from the community of humans while
at the same moment excluding myself from the
community of sinners. You see, when someone does
something wrong to us, what we want to do is
we want to exclude, we want to exclude that person
from the community of humans. We want to say,
you know what, that person, they're not even
like, we don't even want to give them respect
of being created in the image of God. We want
to say, you know, that God created man in his
image, God created women in his image, but not
that one. Not that one. While at the same time,
we're excluding ourselves from the community
of sinners. You know, one thing I love about
the church is that the church is not a country
club for saints. It's a hospital for sinners.
And when we begin to understand that, Even when
someone has wronged us or even maybe we even
exclude ourselves from the community of humans
because maybe there's something that you've done
that you're finding yourself difficult to forgive
yourself. Or someone's done something to you
and you feel like, you know what? I just, I'm
just struggling here. To understand this is to
understand something very important. And that
is that we have to identify with the one who
has wronged me. We have to identify with the
one who has wronged me. And that's why we have
to watch ourselves. It means that we realize
that that person has sinned against me, but in
the same way that person sinned against me, I've
sinned against other people. And maybe not in
the same way, maybe in different ways, but I've
sinned against other people. And so do I really
want to have what I want that person to experience?
put upon me? Do I want that person that I want
to be punished, do I want to have that same punishment
put towards me? Because, by the way, when someone
sins against you, the only way that a punishment
can be paid, the only way that the debt can be
paid, and by the way, in the Lord's Prayer it
says, forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors, or forgive us our sins as we forgive
those who have sinned against us, and a debt
is a sin. Because there's something that's owed.
And what's owed is pain. I'm going to explain
that later on. But when someone sins against
you, the only way to repay that debt is for pain
and suffering to happen. And that's why we want
that person to experience the same hurt that
they experienced us. So if someone hurts us,
we say, ah, you know what? We feel like angry
against them. But then we see maybe they embarrassed
us. And then we see them get embarrassed and
we're like, okay, now they're embarrassed, now
they lost face, okay, now I can forgive them.
But that's not how forgiveness works. You see,
if we identify with the one who has wronged us,
we realize that all have sinned and keep on falling
short of the glory of God. That not only have
they sinned, but I've sinned as well, that we've
all sinned. But the second is, is that we have
to inwardly pay the debt of the one who has sinned
against me. Now Jesus is going to call us to
this, to watch ourselves. He's going to call
us to inwardly pay the debt of the one who has
sinned against me. Now what does that mean? What
that means is that somebody has to experience
pain and suffering. Now if I yell at that person
or I embarrass that person or I make them lose
face or I do something in retaliation or maybe
I don't even do something in retaliation but
they get sick and they get... something even
worse happened to them and I say, okay, now I
can forgive them? Because we think the debt has
been paid? But if we are willing to inwardly
pay that debt, if we're actually willing to forgive
people, if we're willing to say, you know what,
I should yell at that person, I should yell at
my kids, but I'm not going to yell at my kids,
what happens is, is inside we're the ones who
experience the pain. If someone embarrasses us
and we choose not to, embarrass them in return,
then we're the ones who experience the pain.
Now I'm going to explain this a little bit later,
but I want you to understand that every single
time that someone sins, that's called the debt,
and that the only way to repay that debt is through
pain and suffering. And you're saying, well,
man, this is not good. But we're going to see
our answer and we're going to see how refreshing
forgiveness truly is and why it is the oxygen
of the kingdom. You see, I'm staying at Zach
and Megan's house, Pastor Zach, and they have
a lovely house and they have a really fancy coffee
machine, espresso machine. And I know that it's
kind of Zach's pride and joy and he gave me these
instructions and he sent me like a video on how
to use it and everything. I haven't used it yet
because I'm afraid of breaking it. Because I
think if I break that thing, I don't want to
have to afford to pay for it. Because if it breaks,
someone's got to absorb the debt. But you know,
I know Zach well enough, and Zach and Megan,
they love Jesus, and so I know that if I break
their espresso machine, they're not going to
make me pay for it. They're going to absorb that
debt. And I don't want them to have to absorb
that debt, so I don't want to break their espresso
machine. But yet at the same time, I know that
Zach wants me to use that espresso machine. I
think it's called an espresso machine, not an
expresso machine, but that's how much I know
about espresso. But it's something where I know
he wants me to use it. So now I'm in this conundrum,
and that's the conundrum, that's the paradox
that we have in this church, is that all of a
sudden we don't want to hurt someone, and we
don't want someone to hurt us, so we just exclude
ourselves. And we're not part of a life group
or we're not part of a place where we're part
of a community where we can rub shoulders with
one another and be open with one another because
the church should be the safest place in the
world. And so we just kind of go, well, we'll
come to church, but then we'll just kind of stay
at a distance. But that's not the way that God
wants it either. But what God tells us and Jesus
tells us in his passages is there are going to
be times when people sin against us. inside of
the church and also outside of the church and
we can't just isolate ourselves. We can't withdraw
ourselves because part of being the church is
bearing one another's burdens. Part of being
the church is loving one another. Part of being
the church is being together even when we don't
have anything in common except for Jesus. And
so when things do happen because all ascend and
fall short of the glory of God and keep on falling
short of the glory of God because that's what
it says in the Greek, We have to be willing,
if we're going to forgive, to inwardly pay the
debt of the one who has sinned against us. And
I'm going to prove that to you in a few moments.
But we also have to then, and only then, once
we've been willing to inwardly pay that debt,
initiate seeking the highest good of the one
who has sinned against us. And that means that
now that we've dealt with ourselves, now that
we have forgiven that person and we've absorbed
the debt and we've said, okay, rather than yelling
at them, instead I'm going to realize that I
am a sinner and that I have wronged others and
in the same way that I have wronged others and
would like for them to forgive me, I'm going
to forgive this person and even though it makes
me hurt because they embarrassed me and I haven't
had a chance to embarrass them, so therefore
I'm still hurting, I'm going to absorb that debt.
And what happens is, is that we wind up and end
up being able to finally seek their highest good.
What does the Bible say? Love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you. It says don't
return evil for evil, but rather repay evil with
what? With good. Love those. Love your enemies.
Pray for those who persecute you. And so Jesus
says, If your brother or sister sins against
you, rebuke them. Now, what does that word rebuke
mean? It doesn't mean that you just yell at them.
What it means is, is once you have watched yourself,
once you have been aware of your own sin and
that you've identified with them and said, you
know what, I'm a sinner as well and I do things
and I make mistakes. Once you have been willing
to absorb internally, you've been willing to
pay that pain, that suffering. for them on their
behalf, then you can seek their highest good
by going and talking with them. Now I will tell
you one thing that never works. What never works
is to go and yell at someone. Because when you
yell at someone, what are they going to do? They're
going to say, hey, you're yelling at me. I'm
not listening to a word you say. Because you
don't love me. You're yelling at me. But when
we go to that person because we have forgiven
them, now when we tell them, what they have done
to sin against us, we have a much greater chance
that they're going to receive that with a spirit
of love and that the Holy Spirit actually might
transform them and might bring healing to their
lives if they're a believer and might allow them
to become more like Christ or may, if they're
not a believer, allow them to see the beauty
of what it is to experience the forgiveness of
Jesus Christ and actually trust Him. You see,
it says, and if they repent, forgive them. If
they repent, forgive them. You know what, I'm
sorry. I don't want to do that. And you say,
but you know what? They said that and they said
that, you know, yesterday and the day before
that and the day before that. They don't really
repent. Their repentance isn't sincere. That's
not our job. Our job is not to judge whether
a person's repentance is sincere or not. Because
it says, even if, Jesus said, even if they sin
against you seven times a day and seven times
come back to you saying, I repent, you must forgive
them. Why? Because you want to seek their highest
good, but you also realize that it's in your
highest good not to be chained up by the bondage
of bitterness. And we're going to talk about
next week, God setting us free from the bondage
of bitterness. But what we understand is that
we have to be truthful with ourselves in our
own sin situation. And we have to realize how
much we've been forgiven by Christ before we
can be truthful with others. But in the same
way, we... Once we forgive someone, if it's a
serious sin, we need to go talk with that person
once we've gotten to that place. It would also
be not good to not talk with that person because
if you knew that that person was heading towards
their death and towards their destruction, if
you knew that that person was going to experience
some kind of extreme pain because of their sin,
isn't it our responsibility to warn them of that?
Now, here's a third question. How do we get the
faith we need to forgive? Well, the truth is,
is that we already have it. You see, you might
not know that you have it, but you have it. And
so we already have the faith that we need to
forgive. And in Luke 17, verse 5, the apostles
said to the Lord, they said, increase our faith.
If you want us to forgive people, even when they
keep asking for our forgiveness, even though
they're not changing, then you're going to have
to increase our faith. And what Jesus is saying
is, you know what? You already have what you
need. You already have the amount of faith that
you need. to do what I'm asking you to do. And
that's why Jesus says to his disciples, if you
have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can
say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted
in the sea and it will obey you. Now, he tells
a parable because all of these passages, we read
them and we go, what does that have to do? The
millstone around someone's neck have to do with
forgiveness, have to do with this next parable.
And let me share with you how this next parable
ties in. It says, suppose one of you, Jesus says,
has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep.
Will he say to the servant when he comes in from
the field, come along now and sit down to eat?
Won't he rather say, prepare my supper, get yourself
ready and wait on me while I eat and drink. After
that, you may eat and drink. Will he thank the
servant because he did what he was told to do?
So you also, when you have done everything you
were told to do, should say, we are unworthy
servants. We have only done our duty. So here
we have this situation where Jesus gives this
parable and he gives this parable of a servant.
And the servant, you know. He says, this is normal.
Now, we can't think of it like we think about
it in our culture because in this culture, a
servant was someone who borrowed some money from
someone and they said, you know what? In order
to pay back this money, I will serve you for
X amount of years until the debt is paid. And
all of a sudden, here they are and they're trying
to pay this debt. But what we learn from this
is our problem. You see, our problem with forgiveness
is this. is we are servants who are acting like
we are owners. We are servants who are acting
like we are owners. And what I could say is we
are sinners acting like we are God. And so the
solution is to see the ultimate owner. This is
what Jesus is trying to help us to understand.
If we're really going to deal with the hard aspects
of forgiveness and if we're really going to find
success in forgiveness, if we're going to have
the faith to have forgiveness be one of the predominant
characteristics in our lives, we have to see
that our solution is to see that the ultimate
owner, Jesus Christ, willfully became a suffering
servant to forgive our sins. That he was willing
to absorb the pain of our sin in order to seek
our highest good so that we could be forgiven
and spend the rest of eternity, the rest of forever,
forever with him. You see, the faith to forgive
comes by looking to Jesus and his substitutionary
suffering for our sins. Now, there's a passage,
I don't have it on the screen, but it's 2 Corinthians
5, 21. And it says, for our sake, God, the Father,
made Him, made Jesus Christ, His Son, sin on
our behalf in order that we might become the
righteousness of God. So for our sake, He made
Him to be sin who knew no sin so that we might
become the righteousness of God. What does that
mean? They call it the great exchange. That when
we trust Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior,
when we see who he is and we see the beauty of
the Savior, even if it's with the faith of a
mustard seed, even when we just barely can see
it, but we trust Jesus, what happens is that
we take all of our sins and we place our sins
on Jesus when he died on the cross 2 ,000 years
ago. And he pays for every single one of them,
your past sins, your present sins, and your future
sins. Every single sin you've ever committed,
Jesus paid for on the cross if you're trusting
in him. But what the passage also says in 2 Corinthians
5 .21 is that he gives to you all of his righteousness.
Meaning, every time he said yes to God and said
no to sin in his life on earth when he was 100
% God and 100 % man, he took all of that righteousness
and he puts it on you. And he covers you in his
righteousness so that when God looks at you,
rather than seeing your awful sin, he chooses
instead to see his perfect son. That's amazing
grace found in Jesus. That's what we should be
rooted in. Not rooted in bitterness, but rooted
in... The forgiveness that has come to us through
Jesus Christ, that not only did he bear our sins,
but he also gave to us his righteousness so that
when God looks at us, instead of seeing our sin,
he sees his perfect son. And that's rooted in
the substitutionary suffering of Jesus because
somebody had to pay the debt of our sin and the
only way to pay it was with pain. The only way
to pay it was with suffering, but rather than
making us suffer, Instead, Jesus chose to suffer
for us. There's a wonderful word in the Greek.
It's the word tetelestai. It's the last word
that Jesus ever spoke before he was crucified.
And when Jesus was hanging on the cross, before
he breathed his last breath, the last word he
said, and then he died for your sins and for
my sins, was tetelestai. which is packed with
meaning. It means it is finished. It is paid
in full. Jesus said, I paid for your sin in full.
I took on my body through my pain, through my
suffering, the pain and the suffering that you
deserve because I wanted your highest good, which
was to be with me forever rather than for my
wrath to be poured out on you. I absorbed your
wrath and I'm absorbing it and I'm paying it
in full. That's the love of Jesus Christ. That's
what Jesus has done for us. And so if you wonder
how you can forgive someone who's done something
atrocious to you, something horrible to you,
you did something horrible to God. You sinned
against him and yet he was willing to absorb
your pain in order. for your highest good, to
forgive you so that you could be with him. Even
if the person is not a believer, then you say,
how could I ever forgive that person? Well, you
can forgive that person because you can not pray
that they would rot in hell, but you can love
your enemy and pray for those who persecute you
and you can pray that God would actually save
them through the same gracious Savior that he
saved you through and that he saved me through.
No wonder they call him a savior. This is the
key to forgiveness. This is the kind of faith
that we need to have. And if you're here this
morning and you can't forgive yourself because
maybe you had a son that you were too hard on,
or maybe you're a mother right now and you're
just too hard on your kids, or maybe you did
something that you just can't take back, And
maybe the person that you offended won't forgive
you. You can forgive yourself because you are
forgiven. Jesus paid it in full. He didn't pay
it in part. He didn't ask you to make partial
payments. He didn't say you can pay over time.
He said, I paid it and I paid it in full. Let's
pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you now
and we thank you so much for the beautiful, beautiful
person of your son, your eternal son, Jesus Christ,
who was forsaken upon the cross so that we could
be forgiven. Who absorbed our pain so that we
would not have to experience eternal suffering.
We have been forgiven greatly and those who have
been forgiven greatly, can forgive greatly. So
thank you for giving us the faith. Help us to
see, help us to look at the person of Jesus.
And we pray that as we look at what Jesus has
done for us, that your Holy Spirit would transform
us from glory to glory to glory as we recognize
who we are in Jesus. And as we recognize that
you have been so gracious to us, so merciful
to us, to withhold from us what we deserve, to
give to us what we don't deserve. And instead
of choosing to look at our sin, you look at your
perfect son and you say, it's just as if we've
never sinned and just as if we've always obeyed.
Help us to be more like Jesus as we have trust
and faith. in what He has already done for us.
And we ask this in His powerful name. Amen. Thank
you for tuning in to the ECB Sermon Podcast.
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