Short Subjects - Forgiveness

We're beginning a new season consisting of single topics per episode.  Leading off is (in my mind) the most important subject of all - Forgiveness.

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Jeff's Bible Trek. I'm excited because we're embarking on a new season today. This one is entitled Short Subjects, meaning that every subject will be one with only one episode. These subjects are ones of interest to me, and I've been making a list over the past year on subjects I want to talk about. And then I sat down to force rank each one of these subjects or topics, and I am beginning today with what is in my view the most important of all, and that is forgiveness. I want to start with three stories, all true, of key forgiveness moments in my Christian life that stand out to me. In the first story, I was once riding my bicycle on a path right here in town. The path ran alongside a creek, and there were numerous spots where there were patches of trees. As I rode along, I passed a homeless couple in the trees. They were locked in an embrace, and the woman said to the man, I forgive you. As I continued to ride on, I just thought about how forgiveness spans all levels of society, and how it should just be a normal part of all of our lives. The second story, or I guess I could say a count because they're all true, is fairly recent. In a church that we used to go to, we had early prayer meetings on Sundays prior to the first of two services. During one of the prayer meetings, I received a prophetic word from the Lord, which is something this church welcomes on a regular basis. And that word was about shattered lives and broken hearts. I told our pastor about this word, and I was invited during the worship time to go to the platform to release it to the congregation. I began by telling what I saw in my spirit and then proceeded to talk about some of the things that can lead to shattered and broken hearts. And then in the middle of talking, the Lord dropped something into my spirit that I did not get or hear in the prayer meeting earlier. And that was the impact that short or long-term unforgiveness has upon our shattered hearts and lives. I prayed for the people in the service and I returned to my seat. Everyone was still standing up because the worship part of the service was still in progress. A few moments later, my wife, who was standing on my left, she tapped me on my left arm and pointed across past me to my right. I looked, and there standing in the aisle next to me was a lady who had slipped out of her seat, made her way to me, and said to me, That was for me. She started crying. I gave her a big hug, I prayed for her, and she went back to her seat. And I thought to myself, man, the Lord knows how to touch people right where they live. The third thing I want to share is that several years ago the Lord spoke to me from the words of Jesus in the Gospels about forgiveness in my own life. And I actually went on a quest of asking him to show me who in my life, past and present, are people I either need to receive forgiveness from or release forgiveness to. Well, the names and faces started coming. Many of them I reached out to in person to say that I hadn't loved them the way I should have, and I asked for their forgiveness. I discovered that unforgiveness had colored the way I thought about people and the way I had spoken to them. But I cannot adequately describe the freedom and the peace that has come to my life and the lives of others from asking people to forgive me. Names and faces still crop up occasionally, and I deal with it from there as appropriate. You know, Jesus spoke on the topic of forgiveness more than any other person in the Bible. And why is that? Because he was involved in the greatest act of forgiveness that ever took place in human history. I'm talking, of course, about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on the cross. And the question becomes, why would we withhold forgiveness from others when Jesus has already forgiven those people of their sins? And by the way, he has forgiven ours too. Thank God. I'm going to look at the words of Jesus on forgiveness in this episode because no one says it better or as perfectly as he does. Let's start with the Lord's Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount. One person has said that the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 through 7 is the constitution of the kingdom of heaven. I like that. And forgiveness has a key role in that constitution. Here is the Lord's Prayer in Matthew six, nine through thirteen, reading from the Passion Translation. Our beloved Father, dwelling in the heavenly realms, may the glory of your name be the center on which our lives turn. Manifest your kingdom realm and cause your every purpose to be fulfilled on earth, just as it is in heaven. We acknowledge you as our provider of all we need each day. And here it is. Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we ourselves release forgiveness to those who have wronged us. Rescue us every time we face tribulation and set us free from evil, for you are the king who rules with power and glory forever. Amen. So right there in the midst of the constitution of the kingdom of heaven is the expectation of receiving from and releasing to others forgiveness. It is to be a normal, everyday part of our lives. But wait a minute, while the official Lord's prayer is done, Jesus was not finished with his comments about forgiveness. The model prayer he gave us finished up with these words Forgive us the wrongs we have done as we ourselves release forgiveness to those who have wronged us. Rescue us every time we face tribulation, and set us free from evil, for you are the king who rules with power and glory forever. Amen. But almost without taking a single breath, he continued on in verses fourteen and fifteen, saying, And when you pray, make sure you forgive the faults of others, so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you. But if you withhold forgiveness from others, your Father withholds forgiveness from you. So Jesus expects a free flow of forgiveness received and released on a regular basis in our daily lives. But it's also it's also key specifically when praying. So the key teachings so far here are these. A forgiven heart is expected to be a forgiving heart. Let me say that again. A forgiven heart is expected to be a forgiving heart. And the second part is unforgiveness hinders fellowship with God because of this prayer aspect and not interna and not forgiving people. It puts like a misty film over your spirit and makes it difficult to feel close to God because of his feelings about this subject of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a way of life. If we accept our responsibility to receive and release forgiveness, we need to understand that it will happen repeatedly. Matthew eighteen, twenty one and twenty two, Jesus teaches us that we are to forgive repeatedly. Later, Peter approached Jesus and said, How many times do I have to forgive my fellow believer who keeps offending me? Seven times? And right here, I can imagine Jesus chuckling a little bit when he answered not seven times, Peter, but seventy times seven times. Now that's four hundred and ninety times, according to California math anyway. And the key teaching there is forgiveness is not measured or limited. There's no monthly quota where once you receive and or release forgiveness a certain number of times, you can stop until next month. No. How about the parable of the unforgiving servant? This appears in Matthew 18, 23 to 35, and must be read in its entirety, so bear with me, please. The lessons of forgiveness in heaven's kingdom realm can be illustrated like this. There once was a king who had servants who had borrowed money from the royal treasury. He decided to settle accounts with each of them. And as he began the process, it came to his attention that one of his servants owed him one billion dollars. I guess that's just the transposition of the value of money from then to now. So he summoned the servant before him and said to him, Pay me what you owe me. When his servant was unable to repay his debt, the king ordered that he be sold as a slave along with his wife and children and every possession they owned as payment toward his debt. The servant threw himself face down at his master's feet and begged for mercy. Please be patient with me. Just give me more time, and I will repay you all that I owe. Upon hearing his pleas, the king had compassion on his servant, and released him and forgave his entire debt. No sooner had the servant left when he met one of his fellow servants, who owed him twenty thousand dollars one billion versus twenty thousand. He seized him by the throat and began to choke him, saying you'd better pay me right now everything you owe me. His fellow servant threw himself face down at his feet and begged, please be patient with me. If you'll just give me time, I will repay you all that is owed. But the one who had his debt forgiven stubbornly refused to forgive what was owed him. He had his fellow servant thrown into prison and demanded he remain there until he repaid the debt in full. When his associates saw what was going on, they were outraged and went to the king and told him the whole story. Now oftentimes other people will see our blind spots before we will, right? The king said to him, You scoundrel, is this the way you respond to my mercy? Because you begged me I forgave you the massive debt that you owed me. Why didn't you show the same mercy to your fellow servant that I showed you? In a fury of anger, the king turned him over to the prison guards to be tortured until all his debt was repaid. In this same way, my heavenly Father will deal with any of you if you do not release forgiveness from your heart towards your fellow believer. And why is that? Well, it's because we forget about the massive debt that God forgave when he sent his son to die on the cross for our massive number of sins. So the the key teaching here is simple. God's forgiveness toward us should produce toward others forgiveness from us. Let me say that again. God's forgiveness toward us should produce forgiveness toward others from us. Well, if you thought this was tough so far, wait till you hear this. We need to love and forgive our enemies. And you're thinking, come on. Really? Well, in Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 43 and 44, Jesus said this. Your ancestors have also been taught, love your neighbor and hate the one who hates you. However, I say to you, love your enemy, bless the one who curses you, and do something wonderful for the one who hates you, and respond to the very ones who persecute you by praying for them. Well, this is so contrary to our nature sometimes, isn't it? Maybe all the time. You know, I I am an advocate for prayer lists. Without it, I find that I will pray for something or someone once, maybe twice, on a good week thrice, and then I'll forget. And that forgetfulness is the enemy of persistence. You remember Jesus talked more than once, particularly in Luke 11 and Luke 18, about the value of persistence in prayer. A prayer list helps me to come to God with my requests in a persistent, consistent manner. Now, one of the things that shows up a lot in my prayer list is prayer for enemies. I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking, man, is everyone your enemy? No. But here is what I've found. You cannot be angry toward people you're praying for. In fact, I would venture to say it is impossible. Doing what Jesus says here in Matthew 5, 43 and 44 makes it possible for you to love your enemy, which basically means to unselfishly put his or her interests ahead of your own, to bless the one who curses you, and to do something wonderful for the one who hates you. The key teaching here is mercy and forgiveness reflect the character of God. Do you want to be like him? Forgive as he forgives. The last two pages I uh want to review are both about the downtrodden in our society, symbolized by the prostitutes. And both of them reveal the blind spot within ourselves in the case of forgiveness. Here's the first one. It's in Luke 7, 36 to 50. Again, rather long, but it's important to read the whole thing, and I'll try to make it interesting. Afterward, Simeon, a Jewish religious leader, and this is key that Jesus said this because being what he is frames his mindset regarding forgiveness. A Jewish religious leader asked Jesus to his home for dinner. Jesus accepted the invitation. When he went to Simeon's house, he took his place at the table. In the neighborhood, there was an immoral woman of the streets, known to all to be a prostitute. When she heard that Jesus was at Simeon's house, she took an exquisite flask made from alabaster, filled it with the most not expensive, but the most expensive perfume, went right into the home of the Jewish religious leader, and in front of all the guests she knelt at the feet of Jesus. Broken and weeping, she covered her feet, his feet rather, with the tears that fell from her face. She kept crying and drying his feet with her long hair. Over and over she kissed Jesus' feet. Then, as an act of worship, she opened her flask and anointed his feet with her costly perfume. When Simeon saw what was happening, he thought I'm pausing there because he didn't even say it out loud. He thought it. If he were really a prophet, he would know what kind of sinful woman is touching him. Well, of course, Jesus could read thoughts, so he snapped his head towards Simeon and said, Simeon, I have a word for you. Go ahead, teacher, I want to hear it, he answered. It's a story about two men who were deeply in debt. One owed the bank one hundred thousand dollars, and the other only owed ten thousand dollars. When it was obvious that neither of them would be able to repay their debts, the kind banker graciously wrote off the debts and forgave them all that they owed. Tell me, Simeon, which of the two debtors would be more thankful? Which one would love the banker most? Simeon answered, Well, I suppose it would be the one with the greater debt forgiven. You're right, Jesus agreed. Then he spoke to Simeon about the woman still weeping at his feet. Do you see this woman kneeling here? She is doing for me what you didn't bother to do. When I entered your home as your guest, you didn't think about offering me water to wash the dust off my feet. Yet she came into your home and washed my feet with her many tears and then dried my feet with her hair. You didn't even welcome me into your home with the customary kiss of greeting. But from the moment I came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. You didn't take the time to anoint my head with fragrant oil, but she anointed my head and feet with the finest perfume. She has been forgiven of all her many sins. This is why she has shown me such extravagant love. But those who assume they have very little to be forgiven will love me very little. Then Jesus said to the woman at his feet, All your sins are forgiven. And all the dinner guests said among themselves, Who is the one who can even forgive sins? Then Jesus said to the woman, Your faith in me has given you life. Now you may leave and walk in the ways of peace. So the key teaching here is no sinner is beyond God's forgiveness, not a one, and should not be beyond our forgiveness as well. And then there's the famous story, it's in John 8, one to eleven about the woman caught in adultery. I quote Jesus walked up the Mount of Olives near the city where he spent the night. Then at dawn Jesus appeared in the temple courts again, and soon all the people gathered around to listen to his words. So he sat down and taught them. Then, in the middle of his teaching, the religious scholars and the Pharisees broke through the crowd and brought a woman who had been caught in the act of committing adultery, and made her stand in the middle of everyone. Then they said to Jesus, Teacher, we caught this woman in the very act of adultery. Doesn't Moses' law command us to stone to death a woman like this? Tell us, what do you say we should do with her? They were only testing Jesus because they hoped to trap him with his own words and accuse him of breaking the laws of Moses. But Jesus didn't answer them. Instead, he simply bent down and wrote in the dust with his finger. Angry, they kept insisting that he answer their question. So Jesus stood up and looked at them and said, Let's have the man who has never had a sinful desire throw the first stone at her. And then he bent over again and wrote some more words in the dust. Upon hearing that, her accusers slowly left the crowd one at a time, beginning with the oldest to the youngest, with a convicted conscience, until finally Jesus was left alone with the woman still standing there in front of him. So he stood back up and said to her, Dear woman, where are your accusers? Is there no one here to condemn you? Looking around, she replied, I see no one, Lord. Jesus said, Then I certainly don't condemn you either. Go, and from now on be free from a life of sin. And finally, when all the teaching of Jesus was finished, he illustrated all of his teaching on forgiveness in one final act the offering of himself as payment for the forgiveness of our sins. That's right, your sins and mine. And then he became a living teaching. He demonstrated everything he taught on the subject of forgiveness by saying repeatedly from the cross, Father, forgive them, meaning the executioners, for they don't know what they're doing. I want to encourage you to do something. Ask the Lord to show you two groups of people from your life those who you need to forgive and those from whom you need forgiveness. He is faithful. He will show you these people, some right away and some over time, so you won't be overwhelmed all at once. Then ask him what you should do in each case. He'll show you that too. He wants you to walk with him in freedom, folks. And this is the way. God bless you all.