Speaker 1: Hi, I'm McKinsey Copeland.
Speaker 1: I'll be reading our scripture this morning from mark and Matthew.
Speaker 1: When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out into the city.
Speaker 1: In the morning as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots.
Speaker 1: Peter remembered and said to Jesus, rabbi, look, the fig tree you cursed has withered, have faith in God.
Speaker 1: Jesus answered, truly, I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, go throw yourself into the sea and does not doubt in their heart, but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.
Speaker 1: Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.
Speaker 1: And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them so that your father in heaven may forgive you your sins.
Speaker 1: Then Matthew six says, pray like this, our father in heaven, how it would be that your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth.
Speaker 1: That is as it is in heaven.
Speaker 1: Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for if you forgive others of their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.
Speaker 2: Thank you mackenzie into the other McKinsey and Candace and the rest of our worship team for leading us before the throne.
Speaker 2: This morning we are in mark 11 I encourage you to open to that text on, but why you're getting there if you haven't already gotten there.
Speaker 2: I just want to respond to a number of conversations I've had this week.
Speaker 2: I've had a number of people after the pastoral search teams announcement about 10 days ago, asked me about the status of the pastoral search and those have been good conversations about.
Speaker 2: One thing I've learned in those conversations is there's some rumors out there that because the path that goes something like this, because the pastoral search team did not select one of the last three candidates that we brought in that were starting from scratch or starting over.
Speaker 2: And I'm here to tell you this morning that couldn't be further from the truth are those three that we brought here, words simply the first three and a flow of candidates that we're looking at that God has brought to our attention.
Speaker 2: And just to give you an illustration of this, this afternoon we are interviewing a candidate.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow night we are interviewing another candidate.
Speaker 2: Next Sunday we are interviewing yet another candidate.
Speaker 2: We are exactly where we need to be in our pastoral search right now.
Speaker 2: And I just need to tell you, I'm very proud of our pastoral search team.
Speaker 2: They could have done the easy thing.
Speaker 2: They could have made an expedient choice, feeling the pressure, wanting to get somebody in there.
Speaker 2: Instead, they're looking God's man, they're looking for a fit, but ultimately they're looking for God's man.
Speaker 2: So what are we looking for?
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot we could say, but let me boil it down to the title.
Speaker 2: Lead teaching pastor.
Speaker 2: We're looking for someone who can lead but not just someone who leads like Moses coming down from the mountain saying, I've heard from God, I know the way forward, but somebody who will lead collaboratively with our elders and our other pastoral staff.
Speaker 2: That is a rare combination but that's something we're praying for.
Speaker 2: And then it's lead teaching pastor, we're looking for someone who can teach who can preach.
Speaker 2: We're looking for someone who will be over all of the teaching in the church but be particularly one who feeds the body through his, his teaching.
Speaker 2: And then finally, you know, we're looking for someone who will stay.
Speaker 2: We're looking for someone who has a shepherd's heart, who wants to be part of this body, wants his family to be part of the spotty ongoing, uh, you know, on an extended basis.
Speaker 2: So pray for your pastoral search team.
Speaker 2: They are meeting, they are spending hours after hour after hour meeting after meeting.
Speaker 2: They are seeking the will of God.
Speaker 2: Pray for the interview this afternoon.
Speaker 2: Pray for the interview tomorrow night, pray for the interview next Sunday and anything that follows, pray that God would just make it very clear to all of us who is the man that he's preparing even now.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 2: So I'm upset about that.
Speaker 2: But I, I'd encourage you at any time if you have questions, go to any member of the pastoral search team that you know and ask them.
Speaker 2: They'll share with you what the, what can be shared.
Speaker 2: And I think you'll get a sense of the really good work.
Speaker 2: I think that's happening there.
Speaker 2: Mark 11 we are a, we're looking really, that's just a two verses this morning.
Speaker 2: Mark 11 verse 25 and 26 but, but, but remember this kind of began and this is why I had the reading go back a few verses.
Speaker 2: It began in verse 22 when Jesus says have faith in God and as we saw last week, what does that mean?
Speaker 2: That means the genuine faith, genuine faith that produces true fruit of spiritual transformation and US individually and genuine fruit of, of change in our church through the Ministry of our church.
Speaker 2: That is not faith that is in a man.
Speaker 2: It's not faith in who our next lead teaching pastor's going to be or any pastor, any elder.
Speaker 2: It's not faith in ourselves and in our ability to believe and in our ability to do it and pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.
Speaker 2: It's not even faith in faith itself.
Speaker 2: Like if somehow you or me can, we can conjure up enough faith in ourself to really believe it is faith in God.
Speaker 2: Jesus says it is faith believing that if God doesn't move, nothing's gonna move.
Speaker 2: It is faith in God that believes that God is in control of this entire situation, whatever situation we're facing individually or as a church.
Speaker 2: And that may be stating the obvious that our faith is to be in God, but I think we so easily default to putting our faith in men or women or faith in ourselves or faith in the whole concept of faith to begin with.
Speaker 2: We need to keep coming back to what Jesus reminds us of here.
Speaker 2: Have faith in God and I'm so glad that Jesus relates to where I live on a daily basis.
Speaker 2: Where I imagine you live on a daily basis that there are very real obstacles in the way of having that kind of faith in God that produces true spiritual fruit in our lives and in our church.
Speaker 2: And in verse 23 we saw last week that Jesus uses this word picture of a mountain to to give us that image of, of those obstacles.
Speaker 2: Think of yourself on a journey and, and, and you know, you got to go in that direction, but before you stands a large mountain and there doesn't look like there's any way over it or around it or under it that sometimes what it feels like when we're thinking about God, how are you going to work in my life where I can, where I can produce the kind of spiritual fruit?
Speaker 2: You call me to God.
Speaker 2: How are you going to work in our church and the Ministry of our church?
Speaker 2: It seems there's obstacles that stand in the way of that.
Speaker 2: Last week, we looked at the first obstacle, the mountain of doubt from verse 23 if anyone does not doubt in his heart but believes what he says will happen.
Speaker 2: And I won't plow that ground again but, but uh, you can watch that if you miss that.
Speaker 2: This week we're going on to look at the other obstacle that Jesus says we must overcome if we're going to have the kind of faith in God that produces fruit, what I call the mountain of unforgiveness.
Speaker 2: And that comes from verses 25 and 26 verse 25 whenever you stand praying, and by the way, that's, that describes us this morning.
Speaker 2: We are, we are praying, we are praying through worship that describes you and me when we come.
Speaker 2: And we're in the middle of a worship service.
Speaker 2: Just like today, whenever you stand praying, if you are convicted that you have anything against anyone, forgive him, forgive her so that your father in heaven will also forgive you, your wrongdoing.
Speaker 2: Verse 26 but if you don't forgive, neither will your father in heaven forgive your wrongdoing.
Speaker 2: Well, let me pause on verse 26 just for a minute.
Speaker 2: We're really not going to spend much time on it today, but if you have the English standard version, the ESV, you're looking and saying, hey, there's no verse 26 here.
Speaker 2: And if you have about any other version, the NIV, the new American standard, all the rest of them, your verse 26 is either it put in brackets or it's in a Tallix.
Speaker 2: And there's probably a footnote that says something like this about verse 26 verse 26 is not found in the oldest, most reliable manuscripts.
Speaker 2: What is this talking about and how does this impact what we're hearing today?
Speaker 2: Well, let me give you a 62nd crash course in how the Bible came together.
Speaker 2: Uh, particularly when it comes to this kind of question.
Speaker 2: So we have the Bible.
Speaker 2: The Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew.
Speaker 2: The New Testament primarily written in Greek, and it was handwritten of course by the original authors.
Speaker 2: But, but we know that the Bible was written centuries before the printing press was developed in the 15th century.
Speaker 2: So how did the Bible keep getting reproduced and reproduced up until the time of the printing press that made it much easier to do that.
Speaker 2: People copied it by hand.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine that?
Speaker 2: Just one book of the Bible sending down and making a hand written copy of that Bible.
Speaker 2: That's what happened for centuries and all those hand handwritten copies we call manuscripts.
Speaker 2: That's the technical term and we believe at least I believe that the inspiration of God even has controlled the flow of the manuscripts to ensure that what we have is reliable.
Speaker 2: Today there are over 5,800 Greek new testament manuscripts, either entire books that we have a manuscripts, handwritten copies of or fragments of and so we can compare those manuscripts and and we can, we can look and we can find the manuscript that is probably the most accurate manuscript.
Speaker 2: That's what your translations are developed from and and in some cases where there is a difference in the manuscripts, the general rule is go with the earlier manuscript.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: Because that was closer to the source.
Speaker 2: It is probably more accurate because it is closer to the source.
Speaker 2: That's what your note in your Bible is indicating about.
Speaker 2: Verse 26 so in the case of Mark's Gospel and verse 26 the earliest manuscripts don't have this verse.
Speaker 2: In other words, what probably was a situation is marked in right?
Speaker 2: Verse 26 if you didn't write it, where did it come from?
Speaker 2: We'll notice, and this is the reason that I had McKinsey read from Matthew six notice that verse 26 bears a striking resemblance to Matthew six verse 15 let me read 14 and 15 out of Matthew six for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will forgive you.
Speaker 2: But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive you your trespasses.
Speaker 2: So what happened?
Speaker 2: What likely happened?
Speaker 2: This is just the best speculation, is that somewhere in those generations of hand copied manuscripts, a capias added this first and he or she didn't mean anything bad by by doing that, they weren't trying to subvert God.
Speaker 2: They probably thought, well, it's in Matthew and Matthew's kind of describing the same context.
Speaker 2: I wonder if mark just overlooked it.
Speaker 2: And so I'll add it to help the reader so you know.
Speaker 2: That's probably the thinking along with that, what does that mean for us?
Speaker 2: Does it mean that, oh, we'd better throw that out.
Speaker 2: We shouldn't look at that at all.
Speaker 2: Even if it is borrowed from Matthew's Gospel.
Speaker 2: No, because it probably is borrowed from Matthew's Gospel.
Speaker 2: It's, it's inspired.
Speaker 2: It's, it is scripture.
Speaker 2: It's not adding in something that is not biblical that something that should be ignored.
Speaker 2: It does not at all contradict anything that mark has written here.
Speaker 2: It doesn't have any other effects upon it at all, but we're not going to look at verse 26 not because of that.
Speaker 2: We're going to look at verse 25 because that's where I think Jesus most addresses the obstacle of unforgiveness.
Speaker 2: When we look at verse 25 here's the first thing that if you read through it a couple of times should jump out at you.
Speaker 2: The first thing that we should highlight in verse 25 is how Jesus links.
Speaker 2: He links our forgiveness of others with God, for giving us look at the linking language if and so that if you have anything against anyone, you forgive so that your father in heaven will also forgive you.
Speaker 2: Those are linked in Matthew six it's the same thing.
Speaker 2: Verse 14 if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will forgive you.
Speaker 2: These are in separately linked.
Speaker 2: Now, that idea that they're linked and that they're related has caused a lot of controversy among Christians over the years and over the centuries.
Speaker 2: Is Jesus saying that he won't forgive our sins if we don't forgive others who sin against us or to me even more direct and more blunt, is Jesus teaching here that we must forgive others if we're going to be saved and if we don't forgive others, we're not saved.
Speaker 2: No, we know that is not true because of what the rest of scripture says that would be being saved by works.
Speaker 2: And we'll get to that in a minute.
Speaker 2: But before we skip over this, let me highlight what Jesus clearly is saying here.
Speaker 2: What Jesus clearly is saying is this for a Christian forgiveness and forgiving cannot be separated if you are a Christian.
Speaker 2: Forgiveness and forgiving cannot be separated.
Speaker 2: In other words, people who have genuinely experienced the saving grace of God and their forgiveness of sins through Christ, they are characterized by a willingness to extend grace and a willingness to forgive others.
Speaker 2: Chris Bronze, a writer I like a lot on forgiveness.
Speaker 2: Um, he uses this image of an apple tree.
Speaker 2: He says, you know, he states kind of the obvious holding apples does not make you an apple tree.
Speaker 2: I if I came out here and I had some apples in my hand and I said, I'm an apple tree, of course you would not believe me, but he says the corollary is also true.
Speaker 2: It is indeed characteristic of apple trees to bear apples.
Speaker 2: And so if I take you out in my backyard and I show you a tree and I say, see, this is an apple tree.
Speaker 2: See the leaves, the leaves just look like they look just like what you would find on an apple tree, but you don't see year after year, season after season, you don't see any apples on the tree.
Speaker 2: You have reason to doubt whether that is really an apple tree.
Speaker 2: And Chris Bronze goes on to say likewise, forgiving people that doesn't make you a Christian, but Christians do forgive.
Speaker 2: Christians produce the fruit of forgiveness.
Speaker 2: Robert usually says it this way.
Speaker 2: Our forgiveness of others are willing to forgive others.
Speaker 2: That is not the basis of us being forgiven of our salvation, but it is the evidence of it.
Speaker 2: It is evidence of it.
Speaker 2: And so if we come across a person or for the kind of person that claims to be forgiven by the Lord but cannot forgive, is not able to extend grace or forgive others, there is reason to be concerned about whether that person has truly understood the grace and forgiveness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: There's a reason to be concerned whether that person is saved.
Speaker 2: But let's talk about Christians.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about you and me who we struggle with.
Speaker 2: Forgiving others.
Speaker 2: Yes, we want to forgive and we're able to do it sometimes, but in other times where we've been hurt or or some offense has just really struck deep in our hearts, we struggle to forgive.
Speaker 2: What is Jesus saying here?
Speaker 2: Cause that's who I think he's addressing here.
Speaker 2: Followers of Jesus who struggled to forgive.
Speaker 2: What are the consequences if we think we can't or really if we won't or are unwilling to forgive others?
Speaker 2: Referring back to Matthew six what does Jesus mean when he says that if we do not forgive others, neither will our father forgive our trespasses.
Speaker 2: Stephen Lawson says it this way.
Speaker 2: This has nothing to do with our eternal destiny, but it has everything to do with our daily walk with God.
Speaker 2: If you are struggling and your ability to forgive somebody else who's hurt or offended you in some way, that does not affect your eternal destiny.
Speaker 2: If you know Christ as savior and Lord, but it certainly has a bearing, it certainly can affect your daily walk with Christ.
Speaker 2: Think of it this way.
Speaker 2: There are two different senses in which God forgives us.
Speaker 2: There is the first, the sense of God's judicial forgiveness.
Speaker 2: God is our judge in Psalm 96 says that God is the judge of all the world, but the Lord will judge the world in accordance with his justice.
Speaker 2: And what that means is if you haven't trusted in Christ, if you're not looking to Jesus as savior and Lord, if you're not trusting in his perfect righteousness, you will stand before God.
Speaker 2: You're judge one day and you will be judged for everything you've said and everything you've ever done.
Speaker 2: And the outcome of that is very, very bleak.
Speaker 2: But if you have trusted in Christ, if you've acknowledged your sinfulness and your need for Christ, if you've turned to Christ in his perfect righteousness and allowed his righteousness to cover your sin and put your faith in that, if you know Christ as savior and Lord, then God judicially forgives you as judge.
Speaker 2: He wipes all that sin away.
Speaker 2: The, the term we often use for it is he justifies you.
Speaker 2: And that justification has ongoing and permanent effect.
Speaker 2: It happens once at the moment that you turn to Christ and true, genuine repentance and faith and its effect continues throughout the rest of your life and into eternity.
Speaker 2: It can't be reversed.
Speaker 2: You can't lose that state of being justified, and so those of you who have trusted in Christ, even if you struggle to forgive others, you are under God's judicial forgiveness.
Speaker 2: You do not have to worry about that, but God's judicial forgiveness is not the only sense in which he forgives.
Speaker 2: There's also another sense in which God forgives gods what I'm calling parental forgiveness, having been justified, God makes you part of the family of God.
Speaker 2: You become literally one of his children.
Speaker 2: He becomes literally your father.
Speaker 2: And imagine a father even if you didn't have a good father growing up.
Speaker 2: Imagine the most perfectly good lies loving father.
Speaker 2: What is a good wise, loving father do when several of his children cannot get along with each other, he lovingly instructs them and if they do not listen to his instruction, he chastens them and if they do not respond to his chastening, he lovingly disciplines them.
Speaker 2: It's never about punishment.
Speaker 2: Punishment is for those who stand outside God's judicial forgiveness punishment or for those, for those who at the end of their lives have not turned to Christ and will come under his justice and his judgment.
Speaker 2: But those of us who are justified by faith and Christ, we can come under this parental discipline, this parental chastening we are in need of ongoing day today, parental forgiveness and that is why the apostle John and first John one nine urges us to to daily come before him as we become convicted of any ways that we have fallen short of his glory and his will if you confess your sins, John says he is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
Speaker 2: And so it is that parental forgiveness that I think Jesus is speaking about here.
Speaker 2: And I think specifically what he is indicating here is that if you are unwilling to forgive someone, if you are truly saved and you are unwilling to forgive someone, you are going to be under the parental discipline of the Lord.
Speaker 2: And and that parental forgiveness that that results in a, an a close, intimate, ongoing relationship with him that will be impaired and you like that child is not listened to the loving father.
Speaker 2: If you do not listen as he convicts you of that he will allow chastening in your life.
Speaker 2: And if you do not respond to that chastening, he will allow discipline in your life, all designed to bring you back to the place where you respond to him and open your heart to him again.
Speaker 2: So as we become aware that perhaps, maybe even this morning as we come and stand before him praying, stand before him and worship, we are being maybe, maybe you sense you are being held back from a close and joyful relationship with God.
Speaker 2: Could it be that there is a mountain of unforgiveness in your life?
Speaker 2: Could it be that in one or more of your relationships, you are hanging on to bitterness and unforgiveness?
Speaker 2: How do we move that mountain?
Speaker 2: Cause I'll be honest, you know, hearing this truth and that, you know, we're supposed to do this.
Speaker 2: I can easily acknowledge, Oh yeah, I'm supposed to forgive the people who've offended me humanly doing it as a whole nother matter, isn't it?
Speaker 2: How do we move that mountain of unforgiveness?
Speaker 2: Well, when Jesus calls us to forgive, he uses a very specific word for, forgive the Greek word he uses that, that we translate as forgive.
Speaker 2: It actually literally means to release, to let go.
Speaker 2: Have you seen those, uh, those commercials on for let go.
Speaker 2: It's, you know, it's kind of one of those services where you can sell stuff that you don't need.
Speaker 2: It shows people in impossible situations, you know, and they're carrying all of this stuff along with them.
Speaker 2: You know, and the whole point is, let go of it, let go of it and your life will get a lot easier.
Speaker 2: That's the concept here.
Speaker 2: We carry around this unforgiveness and this bitterness and to forgive means to release it, to let go of it, to leave it behind.
Speaker 2: Oh, wise marriage counselor once, uh, introduced me to the concept of gunnysacking.
Speaker 2: I mean this applies in marriages, but it applies in any of our relationships.
Speaker 2: Imagine a big scratchy burlap bag that you have.
Speaker 2: You're carrying over your shoulder throughout your relationships and life.
Speaker 2: And when somebody offends you and someone hurts you, that's like a big rock that you put in that gunnysack and put it back over your shoulder.
Speaker 2: And that's the way we go through life.
Speaker 2: Many of us, we just keep adding rocks to the gunnysack.
Speaker 2: We just keep carrying them.
Speaker 2: We harbor them.
Speaker 2: And so the next time that person does something that offends us or hurt us, see we can even draw that last rock out and show them or show them all the rocks that they have are the ways that they have offended us to forgive is to let those go.
Speaker 2: To forgive is to drop that sack to forgive is even if we realize up, I've picked up that gunnysack again is to release it and to let it go.
Speaker 2: Again, you forgive someone by releasing, by letting go of what you are holding against them and as hard as that is to do, and I know that is hard to do personally, I know that is hard to do.
Speaker 2: As hard as that is to do, let me just be very direct.
Speaker 2: That's what Christians do.
Speaker 2: Apple trees produce the fruit.
Speaker 2: Apples, Christians forgiven.
Speaker 2: People produce the fruit of forgiveness.
Speaker 2: Maybe that fruit needs to grow, but it's there.
Speaker 2: It's, it's there and it's growing and that is something that is an indication that Christ is actually working in our lives.
Speaker 2: How do we do it?
Speaker 2: How do we, when the Holy Spirit convicts us that, yeah, we are holding something against someone and maybe that's you this morning.
Speaker 2: How do we release that?
Speaker 2: How do we drop that gunnysack how do we go about forgiving them?
Speaker 2: Let me, let me suggest.
Speaker 2: First of all, there's a preliminary question I think we ask.
Speaker 2: How important is this?
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes and our gunny sacks, we carry things that other people would have easily dropped rocks that nobody else would've put in their sack.
Speaker 2: Things that aren't really important.
Speaker 2: There are offenses that the Bible says are overlooked.
Speaker 2: Double proverbs 1911 a man's wisdom makes him slow to anger.
Speaker 2: It is his glory to overlook an offense and there are things that happen in our relationships with each other that that truly can be overlooked.
Speaker 2: And by overlook, I mean we can let it go without ever bringing it up to that person.
Speaker 2: We can, especially when that's out of character for that person or it's really an offense that's not all that important in the in the the big s the big picture of the relationship.
Speaker 2: How many of you who are married in your early years of your marriage, you had to wrestle through things.
Speaker 2: I know this is ridiculous, but this is my house.
Speaker 2: Where do you squeeze the toothpaste tube?
Speaker 2: You know, you're squeezing the toothpaste tube in the wrong place.
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 2: Now that may not even rise to the level of offense.
Speaker 2: That's a bit a bit of a ridiculous example but we can choose to make an issue out of something like that or think of something maybe a little more sensitive in one of your relationships or we can choose to simply over look at or four bear with each other to recognize that person's personality is different than mine.
Speaker 2: That person is going through things in their life that I haven't gone through and so I can overlook it.
Speaker 2: I can bear, I can be for bearing towards them.
Speaker 2: What is, what's the risk if we make everything that offends us an issue and we have to bring everything that offends us in a relationship to the other person.
Speaker 2: I think again, proverbs speaks to this.
Speaker 2: Proverbs 1714 starting a coral is like breaching a dam so drop the matter before a dispute brings out breaks out.
Speaker 2: Ken, Sandy speaking about this verse says starting a coral, making an issue out of something that is really not that important in the big picture of the relationship.
Speaker 2: It is like playing with explosives at the base of Hoover Dam.
Speaker 2: You are likely to end up blowing up the dam, you are likely over something that should have been overlooked, likely to blow up the entire relationship so that it can never be repaired.
Speaker 2: What if the offense is too serious to overlook and there are many offenses that are too serious to overlook?
Speaker 2: Some offenses are part of a pattern and we see this person doing this over and over and doing it in other relationships in their life.
Speaker 2: How?
Speaker 2: How they're, how they're offending us or this person is hurting other people.
Speaker 2: This person may be is hurting themselves by what they're doing.
Speaker 2: This person is dishonoring God by what they're doing.
Speaker 2: There's many offenses that we cannot overlook, that it would be compromised to overlook.
Speaker 2: What are we to do then?
Speaker 2: If that's the case, then ask the question, what do I need to do to resolve this?
Speaker 2: The emphasis on I, you see, I think our default, I hear this in my own life many times.
Speaker 2: I hear it as I counsel other people through conflict.
Speaker 2: Many times our default responses this, well, they should come to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll forgive them, but they need to come to me and they need to admit what they've done and then I will forgive them.
Speaker 2: Jesus doesn't give us that option to shit back.
Speaker 2: Jesus says, Matthew 1815 if another believer sins against you, if you feel you've been offended by another believer, you do not sit back and wait for them to come around.
Speaker 2: No, you are to go.
Speaker 2: You go privately.
Speaker 2: In other words, this shouldn't, I don't make a big group out of this.
Speaker 2: I go to that person one on one, first of all, and I point out the offense, brothers, sister, here's what happened.
Speaker 2: Here's the effect it had upon me.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know your heart behind that, but can we talk through this?
Speaker 2: Because right now I feel it's, it's a wedge in our relationship and you work that through.
Speaker 2: Now there's lots of other teaching on how to have those conversations and that's not for this morning.
Speaker 2: But let me, let me jump ahead to what if you've done that and the other person is not repentant.
Speaker 2: And by repentance I simply mean when we're repentant, we recognize, yes, I've sinned and we're willing to admit that and we're willing to take whatever steps to, to rectify what we've done.
Speaker 2: But what if, what if the other person, what if you go to that other person and and and they're, they don't respond to it.
Speaker 2: They don't want to discuss it with you.
Speaker 2: Or even if they discuss it with you, their reaction is, I haven't done anything wrong.
Speaker 2: No, you're the issue.
Speaker 2: I haven't done anything wrong.
Speaker 2: What then?
Speaker 2: Actually I think that's the situation Jesus is encompassing here.
Speaker 2: Jesus is looking at the situation in verse 25 as we stand praying, oftentimes what is distracting us is that unreconciled relationship because that other person is not repentant and that's the relay.
Speaker 2: Those are the things that tend to eat at us and tend to distract us and I believe that what Jesus teaches here is that you may not yet be able to reconcile the relationship.
Speaker 2: You know, you can't reconcile relationship until there's repentance and a willingness to discuss it.
Speaker 2: But you can take the first step.
Speaker 2: You can decide I am going to have an attitude of forgiveness towards that person.
Speaker 2: And this is really the first step and any situation of forgiveness.
Speaker 2: What does it mean to have an, an to adopt an attitude of forgiveness, particularly towards someone who is unrepentant.
Speaker 2: Ken.
Speaker 2: Sandy describes it like this by God's grace, because we can't do it ourselves.
Speaker 2: By God's grace, you seek to maintain a loving and merciful attitude towards someone who is offended you.
Speaker 2: How might you do that?
Speaker 2: He goes on to say, you pray for other person.
Speaker 2: Do you pray on a regular basis for that person who has hurt you, who is offended you, who is unrepentant?
Speaker 2: You pray for that other person and you stand ready at any moment to pursue complete reconciliation.
Speaker 2: If he or she repents.
Speaker 2: Alford Poirier adds to this idea of an attitude of forgiveness.
Speaker 2: He calls it having a disposition of forgiveness.
Speaker 2: He says, you have an inner readiness to forgive and to resolve to love the one who has offended you.
Speaker 2: Dear sister in Christ on by the name of Rinat, she's now with the Lord.
Speaker 2: Uh, I remember a situation and when we were in the same church together and she was speaking up again and again and again in a public meeting and it was irritating me and frustrating me.
Speaker 2: And finally I just let all that irritation and frustration out against her right in the middle of that meeting and the hearing of everyone else.
Speaker 2: And if you'd talked with me the day after and for several weeks after, even even a couple months after, I could've told you all the reasons why I was right, all the reasons why what she was saying was wrong and she was going on too long and she shouldn't have been speaking like that and why I was perfectly justified in my own heart and my own mind for speaking out against that.
Speaker 2: There are months that went by when I was unrepentant about the way I did what I did, and even about some of the substance of what I thought I was right about.
Speaker 2: She did not withdraw from me.
Speaker 2: She did not freeze out the relationship with me or with my wife.
Speaker 2: She continued to be gracious to me.
Speaker 2: She continued to be respectful towards me.
Speaker 2: She continued to extend hospitality towards me.
Speaker 2: That left an open door so that as the Holy Spirit began to convict my heart, it made it easy to go to her and ask for forgiveness and for her to extend it.
Speaker 2: I wonder how many of you this morning using Jesus's words here, you stand praying, you stand worshiping and you have something against someone.
Speaker 2: There is that distraction of that on resolved unforgiven relationship in your life or to use another image you are carrying around that gunny sack those boulders of bitterness and maybe in one particular relationship you just keep adding rocks to that gunnysack of, of, of unforgiveness there.
Speaker 2: Listen to the practical wisdom of Alfred Poirier on how even this morning you can take the first step towards forgiveness by adopting this disposition, this attitude of forgiveness.
Speaker 2: What does he say?
Speaker 2: He says, do not dwell on the offense.
Speaker 2: Resolve that you are not going to dwell on this offense any longer.
Speaker 2: Release it, let it go and certainly do not gossip to others about it.
Speaker 2: Take the initiative you can do.
Speaker 2: Take the initiative to do everything that you can do to be reconciled.
Speaker 2: And there of course he's speaking the words of the Apostle Paul.
Speaker 2: Romans 1218 is far as it depends upon you pursue peace whenever it is within your power.
Speaker 2: Pursue peace, pursue reconciliation.
Speaker 2: Let me close with this.
Speaker 2: I know some of you have been deeply hurt, deeply offended by others.
Speaker 2: And so when we speak of a mountain of unforgiveness, that's what it feels like.
Speaker 2: That this situation in your heart and in your, your mind is like a mountain that is so high.
Speaker 2: How will I ever get over that and, and, and here's the answer.
Speaker 2: Ultimately in your own human strength and my own human strength, we can't get over those mountains of unforgiveness.
Speaker 2: And that is why Jesus tells us have faith in God.
Speaker 2: The only way that I can get over my mountains of unforgiveness that you can get over your mountains of unforgiveness is to have faith in God.
Speaker 2: What do I mean?
Speaker 2: A dear brother, someone that I love, like a brother has been going through a several year struggle in which his name has been dragged through the mud in which his motives has had a dispersion, has been cast against.
Speaker 2: People Have Been Gossiping about him.
Speaker 2: He has tried to walk through that as righteously as he can and still it looks like his future is very bleak because of it.
Speaker 2: He he wants, he wants to forgive but, but he wants that element of, of I want to be vindicated.
Speaker 2: I want my name to be cleared, have faith in God.
Speaker 2: Psalm 37 we've been praying through together.
Speaker 2: Psalm 37 five and six commit your way to the Lord and trust in him and he will do this.
Speaker 2: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn.
Speaker 2: He will make the justice of your cause rise like the Noonday Sun.
Speaker 2: God will ultimately achieve his vindication and if it's not immediate for us, it will be one day when we stand before him, face to face, have faith in God and he will get you through the mountains of unforgiveness.
Speaker 2: I want to close praise, praying those two verses out of Psalm 37 37 five and six if you want to look that up later, I want to pray it for you and for me.
Speaker 2: And maybe you are, have a relationship in mind, what you are holding on to unforgiveness.
Speaker 2: Let this prayer be your prayer.
Speaker 2: Let's pray.
Speaker 2: Lord Jesus, we come to these very hard and I don't think anybody here would say I, you know, we're not supposed to forgive, but Lord, for many of us, that that task of forgiveness is like trying to climb over a mountain that is just too high.
Speaker 2: And so help us to have faith in God.
Speaker 2: Help us to believe, to have faith in God like the psalmist was, was speaking about in Psalm 37 five and six.
Speaker 2: Lord, help us to commit or way to you.
Speaker 2: And by that I mean in what we choose to dwell on, to, on, to commit to your way and what we choose to say and what we choose to say to others to commit ourselves to what is right in your way.
Speaker 2: Help us to trust in you.
Speaker 2: Lord, that you are sovereign over the situation.
Speaker 2: You are working through this situation.
Speaker 2: You are using this situation as part of making us more and more into the image of Christ.
Speaker 2: And then Lord, as we commit our way to you, as we trust in you, may we see your promises, realized that you will make our righteousness the ways in which we are right.
Speaker 2: Shine like the dawn.
Speaker 2: You will make the justice of our cause rise like the noon day Sun.
Speaker 2: Oh Jesus.
Speaker 2: We want to do this because we want to be more like you or Jesus.
Speaker 2: We want to be followers of yours, forgiven people who produce the fruit of forgiveness.
Speaker 2: We pray in your name.
Speaker 2: Amen.