Forgiveness

We test long-held traditions against the finished work of Christ and argue that forgiveness is God’s initiative, received by agreement rather than earned by performance. We separate forgiveness from reconciliation, challenge fear-based theology, and invite a restful, Scripture-first faith.

• finished work as the anchor of grace
• Matthew 18 and unlimited forgiveness
• forgiveness before response, not transactional
• difference between forgiveness and reconciliation
• re-reading 1 John 1:9 as agreement with truth
• fear-based teaching versus gospel assurance
• identity stabilized by objective atonement
• faith as awakening and participation
• practical implications for prayer, confession, and boundaries
• call to read Scripture in full context

Go back and study it out. Study these verses out if you wrote them down today.

Transcript

Challenging Tradition With Finished Work

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I would say six months, eight months, probably even a year, we've been, we've been kind of in a certain place with what we've been teaching. And if I had to kind of put a put a title on it, I would say that we've been looking at a lot of traditional things that we've been taught through the years. And we've just been going back and looking at them through the lens of the finished work, through the lens of Christ, and saying, okay, let me take what I've always been taught and then take what the word says, and let's do a comparison. Because I can tell you, I'll tell you from my own experience, a lot of things I taught, I was taught during the years coming up. Now that I'm reading the Bible for what the Bible actually says, I realize a lot of things don't line up. And when I get in there and I really study the Bible out, and I'm not just saying read it, I'm saying study it. And really get in there and look at the context of it. Some of the things I used to teach and some of the things I've learned throughout the years just don't, they're not lining up with what Scripture says. So we've been we've been hitting on a lot of those things. We talked about sin. We broke sin down. What is sin? Uh what does it mean? You know, we we've talked about salvation, we talked about redemption, we talked about finished work. Uh we've talked about what it means to be uh restoration, to be restored. We talked about what it means to be reconciled. And all of this stuff happened on the cross. And so we're trying to help us see what Christ done for us and not just see it, but actually appreciate what he did. And then when he says in the word, at that point we can rest, that's when we get to that point. I know a lot of people who cannot rest because they're so busy trying to get to God. They're so busy trying to do things right, trying to work their way to redemption, trying to work their way into a place of salvation, and they are always doing something to try to get there. And if we just realize what the Word of God says that he did on the cross, we open our eyes and realize he completed the work. And all we do is come into agreement with that, and now we experience that in our life. It's not like we just sit back and do nothing. We have to experience some things in our life, but we have to understand where it comes from. I was reading something the other day, and uh I come across the verse, and we're going to get to it in just a few minutes. It's Matthew 18, 21 and 22. Uh, but I come across this verse, and as soon as I read it, a few questions popped in my head. Because, see, most of us have grown up in a church or in a church setting where we were hearing that God forgives once we ask. Now I'm gonna challenge you a little bit this morning, so don't get mad at me. Just listen and think on it. Be open-minded and willing to think through some things. But most of us, including myself, grew up in a church, in a in a teaching that God would forgive us once we ask. Once we come forward, once we pray the prayer or have an altar experience. And a lot of times that's traditional teaching, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. There's nothing bad about that. So don't get me wrong in what I'm saying. But tradition is not always necessary. It's not always a necessary thing. And I take a lot of these experiences that I've had through the years, and although they may have been good and I participated in them and I got a lot from them, now I'm looking back and saying, where can I find this at in the Bible? And the problem is I'm not finding it. So I'm starting to go back and say, God, show me what the word says, what the scriptures say. The Bible tells us a radically different story when we read Matthew 18. In the Gospel of Matthew, it says this at 18, verse 21 through 22. Peter's saying something very specific here. I want you to see it. It says, Then Peter came to him and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times? And look what the response was. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven. Now, if you just want to, you know, if you're just a mathematician and just want to look at it from the mathematical standpoint, uh, we're talking about what, 490 times. That's not what he's saying there. He's not saying forgive him 490 times. He's basically saying right here that there is no limitation on the forgiveness. Now, Peter probably thought he was doing something really good when he said, Should I forgive him seven times? Because that seems like a lot to forgive somebody. Especially if you if you've been in a situation and you know somebody has done you wrong over and over and over again. How hard is it to keep forgiving somebody? When they keep doing the same thing, you know, at some point you're gonna say, I tried. I'm done. But that's not what Jesus is saying here. Okay? Peter thought forgiveness was conditional, given only when someone met the right standard. But Jesus doesn't answer necessarily just with a number. He does. He says 70 times seven, but he's that when you study this out, again, that is not talking about 490 times. He is going deeper into it and saying there is no limitation on this. I can't give you an exact number that you need to do. Instead, he points to a reality that's much bigger. Forgiveness is not something we earn or even initiate, it's something that God has already extended to us. Now think about this. God's grace moves toward us. We talk about that on the cross. His grace moves toward us before we even ask. His mercy reaches us before we even know we need it. And this is the foundation of the kingdom of God, a kingdom where forgiveness flows not because we deserve it. And I'm gonna probably get stuck on this right here for a minute because I think that's where a lot of the church is. We only receive what we feel like we deserve. And a lot of people, when they look at their life, they don't feel deserving of these things. They don't feel like they've got to a place in their Christian walk where they're deserving of the redemption that God provided, the salvation that He provided, the forgiveness that He provided. And then these people are walking around, and what are they doing every day? They're doing everything they can do to try to get closer to God. There is nothing more tiring in life and will wear you out quicker than trying to get to a place that you're already at, but not realizing that you're already there. So today we're gonna unpack what it looks like to live in this reality. Because we can talk about it and we can preach it and we can make it sound good and we can get people all hyped up and hooping and hollering and everything like that. But if you walk out of here and you don't have a reality of who you are in Christ and what you live with because of what Christ done, what good is it? What good is it? We should be able to walk out of here with something. So we're gonna unpack this today, what it's like to live in this reality when forgiveness is not like a tally mark that we put up there, but it's a gift we've already received and a lens through which we can forgive others. So this Matthew 18, it shows it pretty clear right here. It shows us that forgiveness is not triggered by an apology, it's not dependent on repentance, and it's not conditioned on how well I reform my life or how well I uh you know do in my life. Maybe I've become a better person, but does that mean forgiveness has occurred? It flows from a forgiver's heart. If forgiveness requires, listen to this, if forgiveness requires the offender's response, Jesus would have said here, forgive them 70 times seven if they repent every time. Because that's pretty much what we're saying right here. If we're gonna live with this mindset that forgiveness only occurs once somebody asks for it and once they receive it, then how do we forgiveness never works? Have you ever asked somebody for forgiveness and you did it out of your own heart because you truly wanted to fix this situation? But when you asked the person to forgive you, they said no. I've been there. They said no, they didn't want nothing to do with it. Guess what? Their lack of response of receiving it did not change the fact that I forgave. But if we live with that mindset that it is based on their response, then forgiveness will never occur. So that's what I'm trying to get us to see this morning. We've got to see this, that it's not based on a response. He didn't teach that, which means forgiveness in essence is not transactional. I use that word transactional a lot, but I want you to understand exactly what I mean when I say that. Think about this. I will forgive you when you do this. We often think about prayer, confession, altar calls. And if that's the case, if I think that God is only gonna forgive me when I come up to an altar and apologize, if I think he's only gonna forgive me when I come up here and spill out everything and tell everything I've done and make a confession, then my mindset needs to shift a little bit. Now again, there's nothing, I don't hear what I'm not saying. There's nothing wrong with coming to an altar. There's nothing wrong with coming up and having that experience and having that time and having that prayer with God. There's nothing wrong with that. But the problem with it is when I teach people that this is the way you get forgiveness.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Because then I do away with everything that happened here. And I've got to ask myself, is the cross sufficient?

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Either I believe it was or it wasn't. I believe it was. I believe what he did on the cross was totally sufficient. So if we believe like that, then forgiveness becomes like a contract where one person earns something and the other person delivers it, but only when certain conditions are met. That's what a contract is. You go and you sign a contract to buy a vehicle. You don't own that vehicle. The bank does. When you pay your final payment on that vehicle and you've paid all the payments on that vehicle, then they transfer the title over to you and you own it. That is a contract. You did your part and now they're going to do theirs. But only because you finished your part. That's what a transaction is. That's a contract. If we view it that way, then there's a question that we have to wrestle with. Why do we teach that God only forgives upon response? Let's sit there with that a minute. Why do we teach that God only forgives upon response? The common formula that so many of us have been taught through the years is this Sin, we sin, we repent, and God forgives.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Think about that. We sin, we do something crazy, we come to an altar and we repent, and as we repent, God forgives. Don't sound bad. Nothing wrong with it. But is that what the Bible teaches?

SPEAKER_01 13:09

I want to challenge you on, I want to challenge you to get beyond the traditional thinking that we've always been taught. Because in 2 Corinthians 5 and 19, I use this verse all the time, but I keep coming back to it because it's it's just it's got so much in there. It says God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses against them.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

This happened on the cross. God was in Christ on the cross, forgiving them.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

See, this verse right here sounds like forgiveness comes before response. Don't just sound like it, that's exactly what it's saying. Forgiveness comes before response. Also, if you look in Romans 5, verse 8, very familiar verse here. But God demonstrates his own love toward us. That while we were still sinners, he died for us.

Fear-Based Theology And Misread Verses

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Now think about that verse just a minute. We quote this verse all the time to people. But notice, not after repentance, not after confession, while we were in the midst of it, while we were still sinners. He died for us. So why do we teach that it's based on a response? Forgiveness has occurred.

1 John 1:9 And Confession Reframed

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Forgiveness was God's initiation, He initiated that. Here's where I think the confusion comes in at. We've done several sermons on reconciliation and what that means. And if you take the word forgiveness and reconciliation and compare them, they're related, but they're not identical words. Forgiveness can occur even if your relationship is never restored. I've got people that I've forgiven in my life, but we don't have a relationship now. So there is forgiveness, but there was never any reconciliation. Forgiveness is my choice. Forgiveness is what I choose to do. Forgiveness is what God chose to do objectively for everyone. Reconciliation is walking that out now and restoring the relationship. So I can forgive, and there can be forgiveness, but never be reconciliation in the relationship. Reconciliation is the actual restoring of that relationship. Many traditions kind of blur these two together. And I think it makes it real confusing when we do that. They assume that if there's no response, then there's no forgiveness. But biblically, it may be more accurate to say no response equals no experience or no reconciliation. So when we look at this and we think about those two, we've got to understand the difference between them. We can't keep throwing those words in there and thinking they mean the same thing. Because I'm at a point now I want people to understand, and I don't, I don't uh I get questioned a lot on what I teach and how I teach it, uh, and I'm okay with that, but I want people to understand what happened on the cross. I want them to believe what happened on the cross, truly recognize what Christ has done, and that we don't have to keep fighting for something that he's already completed. So even though these verses are very clear, I always ask the question why is the confusion still out there? These two verses I just read, they're very, very clear on what they're saying.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

So if that's the case, why do we still have the confusion?

SPEAKER_01 17:28

I've heard people before, and I'm sure that in some time in my life I've probably done it too. But I've heard people standing up and preaching a sermon or teaching or whatever, and they'll be saying things and they'll be quoting these verses and they'll talk about what Christ done on the cross for us, and it was totally sufficient, and then they'll turn right around and say, You gotta get closer to God. And I'm like, I mean, you you just totally cut off what you said, totally contradicted it. How can I get closer to him? Now I can open my eyes up to the understanding of what he's done, but there's no amount of work I can do to get closer to him. So why do why does the confusion still happen? I think one reason is because we've got a lot of people teaching a fear-based theology. Some people worry that if forgiveness is is declared complete like I do, I say it's complete. But if we teach that way, some people think that there's no urgency to respond. How's people gonna respond to it if it's already done?

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Same thing with salvation. How's people gonna respond if salvation has already occurred?

SPEAKER_01 18:48

It's something we gotta look at. But it all goes back to Christ. It's not my opinion, it goes back to what did Christ finish on the cross. What was complete when he said it's finished? What was he talking about? Also, I think there's confusion between you know the atonement and awareness. The cross dealt with sin objectively. He died on the cross and he covered sin for everyone. He said he died for all. That word all is objectively everyone.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

But everyone's not awake to that fact. So faith awakens someone to what's already true. What about when we misread certain verses in the Bible?

SPEAKER_01 19:40

And when I say misread them, we just have a misunderstanding of them.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Look at 1 John chapter 1, verse 9. Most of us know this verse. Probably all of us in here can quote this.

Receiving What The Cross Completed

SPEAKER_01 19:57

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, if I misunderstand this verse right here, it can be very confusing to me because when I originally read this, what it sounds like is if I do this, then he'll do this.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Transactional. Okay. But that's not the way this is read.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

If you go back and you study, what's the word confess mean? We talk about that all the time. Homo legal. Same language. So this is not talking about confessing sins is like coming up to an altar and telling every bad thing that I've done. This means coming into agreement with what? What's already been done. When I can confess and I can come into agreement, what's already been done on the cross, then I'm in alignment, I'm in agreement with what Jesus has already commanded.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

So here's where this leaves us at.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

And this is just one of those questions that just pop up in my head sometimes. Sometimes I don't bring them up to the pulpit. Sometimes I study them out, I think on them. But I'll share this one with you. If Jesus commands me to forgive without requiring a response, and that's what he did, author of the Bible, I've showed you the verse.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

But God requires a response for you to be forgiven. Are we more gracious than God?

Identity, Faith, And Participation

SPEAKER_01 21:46

I mean, it's just one of those questions that pop up in my head. If we believe Jesus commands me to forgive without requiring a response, because he said do that, but God requires a response. Before he'll forgive, then Jesus is saying that I'm more gracious than God. And we know that's not the case. So basically, what it tells me is we're reading the scripture and we're misinterpreting what it's saying. We're taking it out of context. So what this response actually does, response does not create forgiveness. Response receives it. When I respond, when I say, okay, homily gay again, confession. If I come to an altar, rather than throwing out all my dirty laundry and saying, God, this is all the bad stuff I've ever done, and I made this mistake here and I did this here, please forgive me for all of this stuff. Instead of that, if I come up and I confess, what do I do? I come up and I agree with what he's already said. He's already said, my son went to the cross and he died for your sins. So if I come to the altar and I say, Lord, I come into agreement with the fact that Jesus hung on a cross for everyone, and my sins are already forgiven according to your word. What did I do? I just confessed. I come into agreement with what was already said. That's how we receive it. That's how we participate in it. That's how we experience it. I believe it and then I begin to walk it out in my life. My life will change. My thinking will change when I see this thing differently. I'm not working for his forgiveness.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

I come up and I receive it. I come into agreement with it.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Here's a simple way to look at it: Atonement is objective, reconciliation is relational. I said well ago, it's the reconciliation is the bringing back together of a relationship. And I'm talking about like two people. I told you well ago in chapter 5, verse 19, 2 Corinthians, he said that he was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. That word reconcile again, bring back into relationship. So he's already reconciled us on the cross. I'm not working to try to gain reconciliation. I already have it because of what Jesus does. But do I see it? Am I walking it out in my life? Am I living it in my life? Am I experiencing it in my life?

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Just because he did it don't mean I'm living in it. I can just ignore it.

Letting Go Of Tradition For Scripture

SPEAKER_01 24:56

But when I come to a point of confessing and agreeing with it and realizing it, now my life begins to line up. And I begin to say, you've already reconciled me, you've already forgiven me, you've already redeemed me. I don't have to work toward those things. Faith awakens us to what He's already accomplished. Now, why does this matter? Some people may say, Well, it don't really matter to me. It does to me because if forgiveness depends on perfect repentance, a person may think, I haven't repented enough. I haven't, I had how many people have you seen, and I've seen it through the years, they are scared to death that they may pass away, and there's some sin there, some little sin that they've done that they have not asked forgiveness for. And it scares them to death.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

They worry that they're gonna die in that sin and burn for eternity because of that one sin that they forgot to mention.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

That's a scary and a crazy place to live at.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

To know that I'm living in fear that one little thing that I forgot to mention may cast me in hell forever.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

To me, it's easier just to say, God, you said in your word that you reconciled the world, that you brought us back into relationship, and I agree with you. I come into agreement with that word. I don't have to live a life of fear. I don't have to be scared that I forgot to repent about something.

Walking Out Forgiveness Daily

SPEAKER_00 26:53

And that's the way people's living every day. Maybe God hasn't really forgiven me. Maybe I'm still separated from God. And what it does is it fuels shame and it fuels guilt and it fuels fear. And that's not the life he calls us to live. If forgiveness is rooted in God's nature and the finished work, then identity becomes stable.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

I know who I am. Relationship becomes an invitation, response becomes participation. It's not about earning anymore, it's about participating with what Christ has already finished. There's a lot of people who don't agree with the finished work. And I've never I don't I don't understand that. Because basically what we're saying is what Jesus done was not sufficient, and I've got to add to it to make it work.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

And I don't believe that. I believe what he done was enough. So here's the real question Does God forgive the way he commands us to forgive? Think back to the verses a minute. How he commands us to forgive.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Unlimited. Basically, there is no number, you just forgive. You choose to forgive. That's the way he commands us to forgive.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Does he forgive the same way? If Jesus tells us to forgive without limit, would God do less? I think this is one of those things, questions we have to ask.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

And we got to be real about it. See, some people don't want to ask these questions because they think they're questioning God. I am questioning God. I'm questioning the word of God. And I'm questioning my tradition, and I'm putting my tradition up against the word of God. Because my tradition is not going to hold up against the word of God. So I want to go back to the word and I want to say, what does the word actually say? And I want to understand it in context. And I want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm not living my life based on tradition that man taught me, but I'm living my life on what Jesus Christ completed.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

And that makes a difference. It's hard to let tradition go. Some people, some of us come up on tradition.

Study, Context, And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 29:40

And again, tradition is not inherently bad. I'm not saying that. But it can be when it contradicts the scripture. That's the key. When my tradition begins to contradict scripture, I've got to say, wait a minute, I've got to take a look at this. And some people don't want to let it go because it's been a part of who they are for so long. And I understand that. Every church has their traditions, every denomination has certain traditions. But when are we going to get back to the word and be willing to open our mind up enough to say, you know, some of these traditions has got to go. I can't hang on to them because I cannot let them contradict what the word of God says. So when we talk about forgiveness, I'm talking about forgiving other people, but I'm also, I hope you see what I'm talking about here, is I'm getting you to look at the forgiveness that people are fighting every day for. And Jesus says it's already completed.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

He's already forgiven. There's nothing I have to do to earn it. There's nothing I have to do to try to get more forgiveness. He has already completed that work. This was short this morning. I've got something I want I was looking at it yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

I'm gonna start working on it. Started out just giving it out to the church, but it's gonna be a New Testament, one page per book of the New Testament, where it's gonna talk about context. And it's gonna just basically, if you're reading the book of John, then you're gonna have that one page there to look at it and say, what's the immediate context? What's the historical context? What's the biblical context? What's the literary context? And it's just gonna break John the book of John down. So when you go to start reading the verses in the book of John, you read them in context and understand what they're saying. So I'm gonna go through the all the books in the New Testament and give some context on each one.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Um because I think it's gonna help us.

Prayer And Closing

SPEAKER_01 32:26

So go go back if you get a chance and listen or read the uh read when this gets put online. You can actually print off the transcript or you can listen to it, read it, watch it, however you want to do it. And think about forgiveness. Think about what you've been taught. And not just for yourself, but think about other people because I believe our goal is to get other people out of bondage too. It's to help other people get free from the bondage that they may be living and the things that they may be going through. So go back and study it out. Study these verses out if you wrote them down today. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you. We thank you so much for who you are. We thank you most of all for your son Jesus Christ and what was done on the cross. For the finished work, Father, we thank you that everything was complete, and we thank you that we are awakening to the truth of the finished work, Father. That our eyes are open, that we're no longer walking in darkness, that we've moved over and we've we've uh seen the light of the understanding of the truth, of the good news of the gospel. And Father, we thank you for everything that you're showing us, everything that you're teaching us. We thank you that uh you have called this church, Father, to be a forerunner in this area for specific things. We don't want to be like every other church. We don't want to teach like everybody else. We want to bring people out of uh places that they're stuck in, places that they haven't been able to move forward in. And we want to bring them into a different place. We want to help transform people's minds. We want to help people learn and understand the true meaning of repentance is changing the way I think. So, Father, we pray that you continue every day to help us think differently, to help us look at the word differently, to help us not be scared to move away from tradition, but to move into the truth of what you've said in your word. And Father, we'll be careful to always give you the praise, the honor, and the glory for everything. In the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.