SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: We finished the Lord's Prayer last week.
SPEAKER_00: We'll pick up the next two verses this week.
SPEAKER_00: It's Matthew 6, verses 14 and 15.
SPEAKER_00: I'll read them for us now.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 6, 14, for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.
SPEAKER_00: I want to begin this morning by telling you a story of a woman that you may not have heard of before, Agnes Beaumont.
SPEAKER_00: She was single.
SPEAKER_00: She lived with her father, who was likewise single.
SPEAKER_00: Her mother had died at an early age.
SPEAKER_00: She was not raised in a Christian family.
SPEAKER_00: This is 1600s England.
SPEAKER_00: When she was in her twenties, there was a man in town who was an attorney and a prominent attorney, Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Ferry was his name, who wanted Agnes to marry Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Ferry's son.
SPEAKER_00: Agnes refused, and Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Ferry set about making Agnes's life miserable.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout this time, Agnes was not a believer, but the Lord used these trials to bring her to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: She lived a little bit away from her church and she had to walk to church.
SPEAKER_00: And there was a particular morning where she flagged down a passing carriage to really beg for a ride to church.
SPEAKER_00: And in the carriage was none other than the church pastor, John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim's Progress, was the pastor of her church.
SPEAKER_00: She begged him for a ride to church.
SPEAKER_00: He initially refused, saying it wasn't appropriate for him as a pastor to give a single lady a ride to church in their carriage, but she began weeping and he relented and gave her a ride to church.
SPEAKER_00: This was seen by Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Ferry, who started rumors that she and Bunyan were having an affair.
SPEAKER_00: These rumors were devastating to both of them.
SPEAKER_00: The rumors reached her own father before she returned home from church.
SPEAKER_00: She walked back home from church, arrived late on Sunday night.
SPEAKER_00: Her father locked her out of her house, wouldn't let her in because of the rumors.
SPEAKER_00: And uh he said, You can come in if you promise never to see Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Bunyan and never go to his church again.
SPEAKER_00: She refused, and so she slept outside for two nights.
SPEAKER_00: It was on the third day that her father came out to her, and the two of them talked, and they were ultimately reconciled, and it was later that week that her father died.
SPEAKER_00: Well, when he died, Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Ferry accused her of poisoning her father to death to retaliate for being locked outside.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, he was a prominent attorney.
SPEAKER_00: Where could a single woman get such a poison that would do this?
SPEAKER_00: And Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Ferry invented the story that John Bunyan gave her the poison.
SPEAKER_00: She was arrested, she was put on trial for the murder of her father.
SPEAKER_00: The trial took place in her house with her father's body there.
SPEAKER_00: This is a speedier justice system than we are used to.
SPEAKER_00: The jury had to come to the house to observe her being questioned by the coroner over her father's body.
SPEAKER_00: She was acquitted.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, there was no evidence that she had done anything.
SPEAKER_00: And so Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Ferry simply changed the rumor to this story that in front of the jury she confessed to murdering her father.
SPEAKER_00: The jury had such sympathy for her that they let her go.
SPEAKER_00: And that became the rumors around her and Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Bunyan for the rest of their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a question for you.
SPEAKER_00: What should Agnes's attitude be towards Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Fairy?
SPEAKER_00: A guy who has devoted his life to ruining hers, who has lied about her and not uh incidental lies, but accused her of murder, for example.
SPEAKER_00: All to retaliate for not marrying his son.
SPEAKER_00: What should she do if she sees him walking down the street?
SPEAKER_00: Should she wish him well or wish him harm?
SPEAKER_00: How should she pray for him?
SPEAKER_00: That is the overarching question that's behind a passage like Matthew 6, verse 14, where Jesus answers it that we are expected to forgive our enemies, we are expected to forgive our neighbors, we are expected to forgive all of those who have sinned against us.
SPEAKER_00: The word trespasses in verse 14, and again in verse 15, uh is the word for sin, for transgressing God's command.
SPEAKER_00: As we have sinned against God and we have been forgiven, we are in turn expected to forgive those who have sinned against us.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a new command of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_00: The Sermon on the Mount began back in Matthew chapter 5 with Jesus saying, Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, we all want to be merciful.
SPEAKER_00: Merciful is a positive word, merciful has a good connotation.
SPEAKER_00: We all desire to be merciful until you have a face attached to the recipient of your mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Once it's your enemy, then mercy becomes much more harder to stomach.
SPEAKER_00: Once it is somebody who has lied about you or who has sinned against you or conspired against you, suddenly mercy in our culture or in our world becomes a detriment, not an asset.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, Jesus says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus goes on in Matthew 5 to command us to love our enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And love, if you recall, love of enemy is it's a it's a carryover of the second greatest command.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.
SPEAKER_00: Love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes our neighbor and enemies overlap.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus continues in Matthew 5 and says, You want to be like God?
SPEAKER_00: God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
SPEAKER_00: God gives good things to his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: You want to be like God, you act like that.
SPEAKER_00: And now, after the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, I mean, after the Lord's prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, you are expected to forgive not just people generically by showing mercy to the world, not just your enemies, but you are supposed to give particularly people who have sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: This is ratcheted up language here, because Jesus says, if you don't forgive them, then you will not be forgiven by God.
SPEAKER_00: The principle is very simple.
SPEAKER_00: If you are the kind of person that does not forgive those who have sinned against you, you are the kind of person who is not forgiven by God.
SPEAKER_00: The stakes of this could not be higher.
SPEAKER_00: The idea of forgiveness here is uh, of course, a prominent New Testament theme.
SPEAKER_00: What Jesus says here in verses 14 and 15, it's a carryover of verse 12 in the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Back in verse 12, you can jog your eyes there.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 11, you prayed for your daily bread.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 12, you prayed for forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: As often as you eat, you're likely sinning, and so forgive us of our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
SPEAKER_00: You are expected to forgive those who owe you just as you owe God.
SPEAKER_00: And now the the Lord's Prayer is over.
SPEAKER_00: We saw that last week.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's Prayer concluded with the prayer for deliverance from evil.
SPEAKER_00: Some translations even have a benediction there, and then Jesus kind of attaches this at the end.
SPEAKER_00: It says transition out of the Lord's Prayer is you need to forgive those who have sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you won't be forgiven by God.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, the stakes couldn't be higher because your eternal destiny hangs in the balance of your forgiving attitude.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you an outline as we work through the concept of forgiveness this morning.
SPEAKER_00: There are four fruits of the unforgiving heart.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, a heart that is forgiving, that is gracious and loving and kind and merciful towards those around it is a heart that's demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: What is a heart like that is unforgiving?
SPEAKER_00: What kind of fruit do you see in somebody's life when their attitude towards others is a lack of forgiveness, a tracking of wrongs, a holding of grudges.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, this is a global phenomenon.
SPEAKER_00: People around the world, in Christ, outside of Christ, hold on to grudges, hold on to bitterness, keep track of how they've been wronged, you know, have a ledger going in their mind of all the times people have sinned against them or wronged them or not treated them like they deserve to be treated.
SPEAKER_00: They keep ledgers in their mind.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes Christians hold grudges against those outside the church, but more frequently, human beings hold grudges against people that they know.
SPEAKER_00: And so, as Christians, most of the people you know that you are bitter towards or hold grudges towards or keep record of wrongs are in the church.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they're in their family.
SPEAKER_00: You might even be sitting next to one of them right now.
SPEAKER_00: Our hearts are such that we hold on to ways that we have been wronged.
SPEAKER_00: But that kind of a refusal to forgive wrecks your own life and it questions whether or not you've ever confessed your sins to begin with.
SPEAKER_00: The idea of forgiveness in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness comes through confessing your sins to God, and God, who is faithful and just forgives you of your sins as based upon your faith in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So you place your faith in the gospel and you confess your sins to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The word confess, it's the word that homologue just means to say the word, to say the word, to call your sin what God calls it, to call it the same thing God calls it, to see your sin like God sees your sin.
SPEAKER_00: So you are aware of your sin.
SPEAKER_00: You tell God about your sin, not because he doesn't know about it, but because God wants to hear you describe your sin like he describes it.
SPEAKER_00: That's confession of your sin.
SPEAKER_00: You confess your sins to God based upon your faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus canceled your sins on the cross when the record of your sins were nailed to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was punished for your sins, so God can void your sins and forgive you of your sins based upon your faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Your faith in Christ produces that confession and you're forgiven in that way.
SPEAKER_00: However, there is a category of people, and we'll see them again in Matthew 7.
SPEAKER_00: There's a category of people that call on the Lord, that claim to be Christians, that are lying.
SPEAKER_00: And when they open their eyes in heaven, they will see the Lord, and the Lord will say, Depart from me, I never knew you, your worker of iniquity.
SPEAKER_00: And we get a glimpse of them right here.
SPEAKER_00: And first off, they are in the audience listening to the Lord teacher in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, they don't forgive other people.
SPEAKER_00: They are bitter and they refuse to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: And their eternal destiny hangs in the balance.
SPEAKER_00: You can recognize these people through these kinds of fruit we'll go over this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to listen to the sermon this morning, not even through the lens of other people.
SPEAKER_00: This is not one of the sermons that you really need to send somebody, you know.
SPEAKER_00: I know somebody that needs to listen to this sermon because they don't forgive me at all.
SPEAKER_00: No, this is a sermon for you.
SPEAKER_00: This is a sermon for you to apply to yourself and you to look in your own heart and take tally of grudges and ledgers that you are tracking on your own.
SPEAKER_00: So the first sign of an unforgiving heart is unanswered prayer.
SPEAKER_00: A person who refuses to forgive those who have sinned against them is experiencing unanswered prayer.
SPEAKER_00: That's the connection of this to the Sermon on the Mount right here.
SPEAKER_00: In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has just taught his disciples how to pray, and this then is coming out of the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: So we concluded the Lord's Prayer last week, and now he says, by the way, now that I've taught you how to pray, don't bother praying if you're not forgiving.
SPEAKER_00: That's the implication.
SPEAKER_00: Don't pray for your needs if you're not willing to meet other people's needs.
SPEAKER_00: Don't pray for what you desire unless you're willing to forgive those who have wronged you.
SPEAKER_00: That's why this is attached right here.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a new teaching of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's not an isolated experience.
SPEAKER_00: Here, this is something he says multiple times.
SPEAKER_00: For example, in Mark chapter 11, verse 25, he says, Whenever you stand praying, forgive.
SPEAKER_00: If you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who also is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
SPEAKER_00: Notice his language there.
SPEAKER_00: You're praying, and you realize, whoa, time out.
SPEAKER_00: I have this against that person and this against the other person.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Stop your prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Stop.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive that person in your heart, and now you can start your prayers again.
SPEAKER_00: And notice in the structure here of Mark 11, Jesus is saying, you have a bigger problem than your prayers not being heard.
SPEAKER_00: Your bigger problem is that your sins aren't forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, stop your praying.
SPEAKER_00: God's not listening to you.
SPEAKER_00: Because you have things against.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way that Mark says it, Jesus says it in Mark's gospel, you have things against other people.
SPEAKER_00: It's very broad, too.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say if you have things against somebody in your family, or you have things against somebody in your small group, or you have things against somebody in your ABF, or you have things against somebody in your church.
SPEAKER_00: No, no.
SPEAKER_00: If you have something against somebody in the world, anything against anyone, those are very broad terms.
SPEAKER_00: If you have something against people, you got your hands folded, your head bowed, your eye closed, and you have something against somebody, unfold your hands, lift up your head, open your eyes, and sort through in your own heart who you're bitter against and ask for forgiveness for your bitterness.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't say, go, you know, go find them.
SPEAKER_00: Go sort them out.
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes that wouldn't even be helpful, right?
SPEAKER_00: If I went and found somebody I was bitter at from something they did to me a few years ago, and I would say, Hey, you know, I've been angry at you for three years.
SPEAKER_00: You might, you likely might not even remember what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And then it becomes an argument about if that really did happen, you know, because my memory's bad and it's just a strange conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Just in your own heart, forgive the person.
SPEAKER_00: And then go back to praying.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why is it that if you are holding things against somebody, God's not going to hear your prayers?
SPEAKER_00: This is just a rule.
SPEAKER_00: God says, Oh, I'm not going to listen to that person's prayers because they're holding things against someone, so nope, banned.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's actually more straightforward than that.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's if you're praying for something, but you're holding on to grudges, you're placing yourself in the center of your world.
SPEAKER_00: You have your world revolving around you.
SPEAKER_00: So your prayers might start, my Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, but then the next verse of your prayer is basically, my kingdom come, my will be done.
SPEAKER_00: God's not going to answer that kind of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: If you're at the center of your world, your prayers are being filtered, your prayers are being siphoned through your own myopic worldview.
SPEAKER_00: You have you in the center of your worldview, you have you in the center, and so you're praying for things that are about you, with you in the middle, other people have wronged you, you're praying, even the other people would be aware of how they've mistreated you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, who's God in that sentence?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I really pray you would open up those people's minds for not treating me as my hallowed name deserves.
SPEAKER_00: You're praying to yourself, about yourself, for yourself, with yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Any other prepositions you want, yourself.
SPEAKER_00: That's not gonna answer those prayers.
SPEAKER_00: So why don't you stop your praying, start your forgiving in your heart, and now go back to praying when you put God back in the center of the world?
SPEAKER_00: God's not gonna answer the kind of prayers that are about you and for you.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a great biblical example of this.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: His brothers were gonna throw him in a pit, which is bad.
SPEAKER_00: They were gonna murder him, which is also bad.
SPEAKER_00: They settled on selling him into slavery, which is bad also.
SPEAKER_00: He goes into slavery, and they wanted him dead, they betrayed him.
SPEAKER_00: Now Joseph goes on throughout his life trusting in the Lord, which is remarkable.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many trials and tribulations in Joseph's life, too long to catalog all of them, but at the end of his life, he can zoom out a little bit and realize you know what, the Lord actually used all this for good.
SPEAKER_00: He could forgive his brothers because the Lord, Joseph understood the Lord used his being sold into slavery for good.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't think Joseph even understood the whole arc of the Genesis narrative or anything.
SPEAKER_00: Why did God allow Joseph to be sold into slavery?
SPEAKER_00: Why did God mean it, intend it, direct it?
SPEAKER_00: What was God doing?
SPEAKER_00: God was getting his people into Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: So in the book of Exodus, they would be slaves in Egypt and be led out of Egypt through the Red Sea crossing, out into the wilderness for 40 years, eating manna.
SPEAKER_00: This was all a setup for the gospel story about the Israelites being slaves and led to freedom so God could be known as the Redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: They needed first to be enslaved in Egypt before they could be delivered into Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph does not understand that.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph only understands that God is enslaving me for good.
SPEAKER_00: Somehow, I don't know what, these brothers of mine meant it for evil.
SPEAKER_00: God means it for good, and because God is at the center of my worlds, not me, I can forgive those who sinned against me.
SPEAKER_00: If Joseph is holding on, if Joseph had a hymn in the center of the world, he wouldn't be forgiving his brothers because it'd be all about a hymn and his story.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he forgives his brothers because he knew that God was at work.
SPEAKER_00: So here's a question for you: Are you seeking your good or God's good?
SPEAKER_00: Are you seeking your vindication or God's vindication?
SPEAKER_00: And they are not the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Stop it.
SPEAKER_00: Are you wanting to be justified and made right?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you want God to be glorified?
SPEAKER_00: And if you hold on to you wanting to be justified and glorified, you wanting to be vindicated, then your prayers are about you and for you, and God does not answer those kind of prayers.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Timothy 2, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: I desire that in every place men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger and without quarreling.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I want people to pray without quarreling.
SPEAKER_00: Paul doesn't even take sides in the quarrel.
SPEAKER_00: This is a kind of a generic command.
SPEAKER_00: You're in a fight, one of you right, one of you wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Possibly both of you are wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Don't even need to sort it out.
SPEAKER_00: You want to pray?
SPEAKER_00: Stop your quarreling.
SPEAKER_00: And both of you seek God's kingdom together.
SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, the unforgiving heart has unanswered prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, the unforgiving heart has unknown love.
SPEAKER_00: The unforgiving heart has unknown love.
SPEAKER_00: The unforgiving part is not experienced the love of God that comes through forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: God loves his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus made that clear in Matthew chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: God loves his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: What about you?
SPEAKER_00: Very difficult to say you love your enemies when you won't overlook their offenses because love covers transgressions.
SPEAKER_00: You know that.
SPEAKER_00: Love covers transgressions.
SPEAKER_00: Parents think their kids are the most adorable little kids because they love their kids, and love covers all their kids' offenses.
SPEAKER_00: Kids lighting the other kids' Barbie doll on fire, you're like, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I love that kid.
SPEAKER_00: He's just so cute when he's an arsonist.
SPEAKER_00: So adorable.
SPEAKER_00: Love covers offenses.
SPEAKER_00: When you love someone, you don't keep a record of their wrongs.
SPEAKER_00: When you love someone, love covers their offenses.
SPEAKER_00: In a sense, when Jesus says here, forgive others, this is an overflow of what he said in Matthew chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to love your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: I mentioned that the second greatest command to love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: It is the most often quoted Old Testament text of the New Testament over a dozen times.
SPEAKER_00: And that's because, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, love keeps no record of wrongs.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot tell you how many times I have been in a counseling situation or heard of counseling situations or marriage counseling or family counseling, where a person will have an actual notebook of the sins their wife or their husband has committed against them.
SPEAKER_00: Like they have them recorded in a notebook.
SPEAKER_00: I I saw one guy who had it recorded in a Molski notebook.
SPEAKER_00: Those are expensive.
SPEAKER_00: He invested in this.
SPEAKER_00: So he could tell you I can if I if I forgive her for what she did, then she'll have gonna she's gonna have to apologize for what she did on January 12th, 1984.
SPEAKER_00: There's a record of wrongs.
SPEAKER_00: Love keeps no record of wrongs.
SPEAKER_00: Love doesn't have the ledger in the mind.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, love, this is the opposite of indifference.
SPEAKER_00: You might say, okay, loving my enemies, that's too much.
SPEAKER_00: Can I at least ignore my enemies?
SPEAKER_00: My neighbor is my enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm just not gonna make eye contact, walk in this other road.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna ignore it, live my life independently of him.
SPEAKER_00: That's I'm gonna express my love to my neighbor slash my enemy, because they're often the same person.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna express my love to that person by ignoring that person.
SPEAKER_00: But ignoring them is not on the table.
SPEAKER_00: This is in indifference, it is not one of the options.
SPEAKER_00: You're not allowed to just say, I won't hate them.
SPEAKER_00: I won't wish them blessings either, though.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, because that's not being like God.
SPEAKER_00: God forgives, and forgiveness is the word that means cancel, it's the word that means to literally to hurl away from you, to throw far away from you.
SPEAKER_00: That's how God forgives your sins.
SPEAKER_00: When God forgives your sins, he doesn't write them down and put them in a file to be accessed later.
SPEAKER_00: When he forgives your sins, he writes them on a record, he nails them to the cross of Jesus where they are paid in full.
SPEAKER_00: They're not then filed away.
SPEAKER_00: The American uh idiom for this might be you tear up the bill.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just that the bill was paid and stamped paid in full.
SPEAKER_00: It was that after it was stamped paid in full, it was ripped up and shredded.
SPEAKER_00: And the the paper scraps were taken into two different dumps.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we got going on here.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you treat your people who have sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: You rip up their bill, you shred it up, and you spread the papers around.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to be able to tape that thing back together.
SPEAKER_00: That's how God forgives.
SPEAKER_00: He hurls the offense away.
SPEAKER_00: And when you want to forgive like God forgives, not only do you hurl it away and forgive it, but you also then want what is best for the other person.
SPEAKER_00: That's how God loves you.
SPEAKER_00: God loves his enemies by giving them what is best for them, namely himself.
SPEAKER_00: When God gives somebody what's best for them, it's himself, right?
SPEAKER_00: God gives himself in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So God doesn't merely cancel their sin, he then gives the best thing possible to them.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you are supposed to forgive your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: You cancel their sin, and then you seek their actual good.
SPEAKER_00: You pray for their good, you pray for their blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Another example of this.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the same example, Joseph.
SPEAKER_00: So he's now out of slavery, prime minister, he recognizes God was doing something through this trial.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I don't think Joseph even understood all that God was doing when he said this, but he was able to say, God meant it for, you meant it for evil, God meant it for good.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what comes next in that passage?
SPEAKER_00: We always stop our memory verse right there.
SPEAKER_00: You know what comes next?
SPEAKER_00: Joseph prays for the children of the people who sold them into slavery.
SPEAKER_00: He wants their children to be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: That is forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: That is love.
SPEAKER_00: Not just saying, I forgive you, but saying, I forgive you because God was working this for good, so much so that I even want you and your children to be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: That's Genesis 50, verse 21, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: You're actually seeking the good for those people who have sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 23, just a humorous little command.
SPEAKER_00: So antiquated and outdated for our culture.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's a funny little verse.
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 23, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: If you meet your enemy's ox wandering away, bring it back to him.
SPEAKER_00: You're wandering on the road and there goes your enemy's donkey.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, oh, that's my enemy's donkey.
SPEAKER_00: You're not commanded to ignore it.
SPEAKER_00: You can't slaughter it and eat it, not allowed.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just ignore it.
SPEAKER_00: No, you have to actually go to your enemy's donkey and bring it back to him and smile when you do it.
SPEAKER_00: Your enemy's dog runs away.
SPEAKER_00: No, don't run over it.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ignore it.
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and catch it and give it back to your enemy, not even hoping for a reward.
SPEAKER_00: Then the next passage, Exodus 23, verse 5, if your enemy's oxen falls over because of its load and you come across it and your enemy is trying to help up his oxen back up, you have to help him, it says.
SPEAKER_00: Go help your enemy right as oxen.
SPEAKER_00: You're driving along the road, and your enemy, the person who's lied about you, slandered you, filed false accusations against you with the HOA, with your boss.
SPEAKER_00: That guy, that one, called your work to get you in trouble.
SPEAKER_00: That guy.
SPEAKER_00: You see him with a flat tire on the side of the road, you gotta stop and help him, Exodus 23 says.
SPEAKER_00: Help him change the tire and tighten those lug nuts all the way.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Kings 6, Elisha is ambushed by his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: His enemies camp outside of his house and ambush him.
SPEAKER_00: You can't ambush a prophet, though.
SPEAKER_00: God blinds his enemies, turns them over to Elisha.
SPEAKER_00: Elisha leads them to Samaria, the capital city, where the king comes out and says, Great, our enemies are all here and they're blind.
SPEAKER_00: Let's slaughter them.
SPEAKER_00: And Elisha says, It's not right to slaughter them.
SPEAKER_00: Feed them.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get them bread and water.
SPEAKER_00: And then the next verse says, Then they enjoyed a huge feast.
SPEAKER_00: They got all their enemies locked in one place.
SPEAKER_00: They don't just give them bread and water, they give them a feast.
SPEAKER_00: They made Thanksgiving dinner for them and sent them on their way.
SPEAKER_00: That's what forgiving your enemies looks like.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it looks like.
SPEAKER_00: You love them, you care for them.
SPEAKER_00: You want what is best for them.
SPEAKER_00: There was a high school soccer player I coached in New Mexico who, in high school, he had a revenge list that he kept with him at all times.
SPEAKER_00: These are players that had uh humiliated him back when he was in middle school or a freshman.
SPEAKER_00: They had wronged him in various ways.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they megged him on the soccer field.
SPEAKER_00: One kid was on the list because he scored a goal with his hand.
SPEAKER_00: He handled the ball into the goal, and that was a winning goal in a game and got away with it.
SPEAKER_00: So on the revenge list, he had an actual revenge list, like eight or nine names on it, and he always had it in his bag that he brought to every game.
SPEAKER_00: And over the course of his high school career, it was his goal, because these kids are all on different teams.
SPEAKER_00: It was his goal to beat every one of those teams and to get back at that guy, to avenge that guy in some way to get away with something on him.
SPEAKER_00: And when he did it, he would cross the name off the list.
SPEAKER_00: By the time he graduated, he had crossed every name off the list except one.
SPEAKER_00: This guy went to go play for the University of Maryland and he kept his list with him in his bag at all of his University of Maryland games, checking the roster to see if that nemesis ever appeared.
SPEAKER_00: And one day, his junior year, the nemesis appeared.
SPEAKER_00: Only, plot twist, the nemesis had transferred schools to the University of Maryland.
SPEAKER_00: They were now teammates.
SPEAKER_00: The one name left on his list was his teammate.
SPEAKER_00: What are you supposed to do?
SPEAKER_00: If you wish harm on that guy, you're wishing harm on your own team.
SPEAKER_00: If you want him to lose a game to learn a lesson, it's your team that loses.
SPEAKER_00: You see the conundrum?
SPEAKER_00: What's a person supposed to do?
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, it's impossible.
SPEAKER_00: There's no solution.
SPEAKER_00: Or you could forgive the guy.
SPEAKER_00: That would be the solution.
SPEAKER_00: You forgive.
SPEAKER_00: Do you recognize that if you're rooting for his failure, you're rooting against your own team?
SPEAKER_00: That's what Christians are like that keep grudges against people in their own church.
SPEAKER_00: The person transferred in.
SPEAKER_00: They're here.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna spend eternity with that person.
SPEAKER_00: You got a revenge list going on?
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna wake up in heaven and that person's gonna be there.
SPEAKER_00: How are you supposed to wish for their harm then?
SPEAKER_00: And so what if there's a late transfer to the team of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: He'll get there eventually.
SPEAKER_00: That's so silly.
SPEAKER_00: You love your enemies by forgiving them.
SPEAKER_00: By forgiving them.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, the person who's unforgiving has unanswered prayer, unknown love, and thirdly, they have an unexperienced joy.
SPEAKER_00: The person who's holding on to list in their mind of people that have wronged them, holding on to grievances, that person has a heart that is shut up in bitterness.
SPEAKER_00: Bitterness is a poison.
SPEAKER_00: It's a gall, Proverbs says.
SPEAKER_00: You drink it and it withers your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Bitter people wither and die from the inside.
SPEAKER_00: Kind people blossom.
SPEAKER_00: Kind people flourish.
SPEAKER_00: Bitter people shrivel and die.
SPEAKER_00: And this contrast is on display in the Bible for anybody that wishes to see it.
SPEAKER_00: Paul and Nero are two examples I go to.
SPEAKER_00: Nero devoted so much the end of his life to persecuting Christians, and specifically Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Paul devoted so much the end of his life to praying for leaders and having joy.
SPEAKER_00: Paul died a beggar.
SPEAKER_00: He would, you know, one of his last words was writing for somebody to bring him a jacket because he didn't have any clothes on his back.
SPEAKER_00: Paul died in poverty, executed by the Roman government, and yet with joy.
SPEAKER_00: So much joy in that guy's heart.
SPEAKER_00: Nero, on the other hand, died wealthy, powerful, and rich, and bitter, and jealous, and angry.
SPEAKER_00: So much has been written about Nero, so much has been written about Paul, the contrast could not be more clear.
SPEAKER_00: If you want joy in your life, you have to strangle bitterness.
SPEAKER_00: You want things to grow, you have to get rid of the weeds.
SPEAKER_00: There is a in our cul-de-sac, in the cul-de-sac I live in, there is a section of ground that has not been cultivated in the entire history of the United States of America.
SPEAKER_00: One of my neighbors just recently went out and cleared it all out.
SPEAKER_00: Cut down the big tree that was there, cleared out all the vines, all the little trees, everything, made it just brown dirt, and then planted grass seeds all over it.
SPEAKER_00: And wouldn't you know it, within like two weeks, it is filled with grass and is lovely.
SPEAKER_00: But then after two weeks and one day, the weeds start coming back.
SPEAKER_00: So what are you supposed to do?
SPEAKER_00: You want flowers to grow there?
SPEAKER_00: You gotta pull the weeds.
SPEAKER_00: You want grass to grow there, you gotta pull the weeds.
SPEAKER_00: You don't plow it all off again to start over every time a weed grows.
SPEAKER_00: I have a new weed in your grass.
SPEAKER_00: You don't plow the whole yard away.
SPEAKER_00: No, when you you plowed it one time and you plant it, and everything will grow just fine, and now you tend the weeds.
SPEAKER_00: This is what a believer's life is like.
SPEAKER_00: You come to faith in Christ, the ground is plowed away, grass, the grass, the seeds of joy are planted.
SPEAKER_00: You should be a joyful and blossoming person.
SPEAKER_00: But then the weeds grow back in.
SPEAKER_00: This sin over there, this sin over there, and you confess those sins and you experience the forgiveness that comes from those sins.
SPEAKER_00: And then people sin against you.
SPEAKER_00: What do you do with those weeds?
SPEAKER_00: You pull them, you forgive other people of their sins.
SPEAKER_00: As fast as they grow in your heart, you're forgiving people left and right.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive.
SPEAKER_00: But the person who doesn't forgive lets the weeds take over again.
SPEAKER_00: If that yard is not touched, it's going to be the wild kingdom out there.
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be your heart.
SPEAKER_00: No hope for grass, no hope for flowers, no hope for joy if you don't pluck the weeds of bitterness.
SPEAKER_00: Confess your sins to the Lord regularly.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive other people who've sinned against you regularly.
SPEAKER_00: The heart that doesn't bear the fruit of forgiveness is a heart that has not experienced the warm spring rain from God that comes to the person who forgives other people.
SPEAKER_00: The heart that refuses to forgive is deprived.
SPEAKER_00: And the the irony of this person, the lack of joy person, the lack of forgiving other people, person, the person with the list of those who've sinned against them, the irony of that person is they think they are strong.
SPEAKER_00: They think they're the strong one for bearing all the weight of all the sins.
SPEAKER_00: You know how many people have sinned against me?
SPEAKER_00: I have to bear all this weight.
SPEAKER_00: I am the strong person.
SPEAKER_00: They think they're mighty for bearing the sins of all the wrongs they've endured, but those who are around them see the withering.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Proverbs says, Proverbs 19, verse 11, good sense makes one slow to anger.
SPEAKER_00: And it is his glory to overlook an offense.
SPEAKER_00: You know what strength looks like?
SPEAKER_00: Forgiving.
SPEAKER_00: Strength looks like forgiving those around you.
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even use the word strength here.
SPEAKER_00: It uses a synonym for it, but it's translated to good sense.
SPEAKER_00: Like the smart person, the person with a strong mind.
SPEAKER_00: They're slow to get angry.
SPEAKER_00: And it is his glory from the Lord's perspective and from the horizontal perspective, it's to his glory to overlook an offense.
SPEAKER_00: Love is slow to anger and keeps no record of wrongs.
SPEAKER_00: This is so different in the world, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: So different in the world.
SPEAKER_00: The world thinks that forgiveness makes you weak.
SPEAKER_00: The world thinks that if you forgive people, I've heard people say, if you forgive your enemies, then you'll just get walked all over.
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, not that.
SPEAKER_00: The world thinks if you don't keep a record of wrongs, if you don't stick up for yourself, nobody else will.
SPEAKER_00: A.W.
SPEAKER_00: Pink writes, quote, this attitude seen in this passage shows God pouring contempt on the wisdom of this world and showing how radically opposed our world is to the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Because Christians esteem forgiveness, the world esteems vengeance.
SPEAKER_00: Christians have a joy that they know from forgiving.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't stick up for yourself, people will steal all your property.
SPEAKER_00: People will hurt your kids.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta stick up for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not naive to the practical implications of these kind of commands, but I do want to just draw before we get to the fourth point, I do want to bring your attention to the end of Romans 12 and Romans 13.
SPEAKER_00: You don't even need to flip there.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 12 says, love your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 13 says the government bears the sword.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a joint function there.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna love your enemies, you're gonna forgive your enemies, you're gonna let your enemies walk all over you.
SPEAKER_00: But when they break laws, the government steps in to protect you.
SPEAKER_00: You want to have the Romans 12 ethic, you need the Romans 13 sword.
SPEAKER_00: The Romans 13 sword is not in your holster, it's in the government's holster.
SPEAKER_00: So you forgive your enemies, and the government steps in and protects you, which the government does not do well or justly or with you know two standards of justice, all that, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: The fact remains you're supposed to forgive others and let the government defend who the government will defend.
SPEAKER_00: You think, yeah, but people will take advantage of me.
SPEAKER_00: People will push me around and knock me down.
SPEAKER_00: What happened to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: He got pushed around and knocked down.
SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna be better off than him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had such joy in his heart, too, through it all.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, first, fruit of an unforgiving heart, unanswered prayer, second, unknown love, third, unexperienced joy.
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly, the fourth fruit of the unforgiving heart is unforgiven sins.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the main thrust of what's happening in verse 14 to 15.
SPEAKER_00: If you do not forgive others their trespasses, verse 15 says, neither will your heavenly father forgive you your trespasses.
SPEAKER_00: And the principle is simple and sobering.
SPEAKER_00: If we have not forgiven, we will not be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: That's the principle.
SPEAKER_00: Now our minds go straight to cause and effect.
SPEAKER_00: As good Protestants were like, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Does that mean in order to have my sins forgiven, I first forgive other people so I can merit forgiveness from God?
SPEAKER_00: If I want to have my sins forgiven, I gotta forgive that guy.
SPEAKER_00: Then I go to God and say, Hey, forgive that guy, will you forgive my sins now?
SPEAKER_00: This is not a cause and effect kind of statement here.
SPEAKER_00: This is axiomatic.
SPEAKER_00: If you're the kind of person that is holding on to bitterness and grudges, you're the kind of person that has not experienced the forgiveness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you confess your sins to the Lord, you would realize how greatly God has forgiven you, you would in turn have a disposition towards others of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: This is what uh Paul says in Ephesians 4, verse 32.
SPEAKER_00: Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the as here.
SPEAKER_00: You forgive others as God forgave you.
SPEAKER_00: If you've experienced the forgiveness of God, you're supposed to let it overflow to other people.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness is the mark of a regenerate heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness is the mark of a regenerate heart.
SPEAKER_00: We have a little bit of time, so I want to take you to one more passage that makes this point so well.
SPEAKER_00: You can flip in your Bibles to Matthew 18.
SPEAKER_00: So keep your finger in Matthew 6, we'll get back there, but for now you can go to Matthew 18.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 18, of course, is the church discipline passage.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 18, verses 15.
SPEAKER_00: If your brother sins against you, tell him the fault.
SPEAKER_00: If he listens to you, great.
SPEAKER_00: If he can persist in sin, you bring a witness to the confrontation.
SPEAKER_00: He persists in sin, you bring in the church elders, he persists in sin, you tell it to the church.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the gist of Matthew 18 there.
SPEAKER_00: The idea is that you're confronting somebody in their sin.
SPEAKER_00: The question is, you know, do I have to forgive, does somebody have to ask me to have their sins forgiven, or do you just have the attitude of forgiveness?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is you have the attitude of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: You have the attitude of forgiving anybody that has ever sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: When they are confronted in the church discipline scenario, you have an attitude of forgiveness for towards them, even though church discipline is carrying forward.
SPEAKER_00: Until they repent, they'll then be put out of the church.
SPEAKER_00: It's designed to protect the church, not you.
SPEAKER_00: So you have an attitude of forgiveness towards those who have sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: I think Peter understood what was being said because in verse 21, Peter asks a classic Peter question.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?
SPEAKER_00: I just like the way he even ordered the words there.
SPEAKER_00: Classic Peter.
SPEAKER_00: How often is my brother going to sin against me and I forgive him?
SPEAKER_00: As many as seven times.
SPEAKER_00: Such generosity from Saint Peter right there.
SPEAKER_00: Such generosity.
SPEAKER_00: In the Jewish custom, the Talmud, it says if someone sins against you, you can forgive them up to three times.
SPEAKER_00: That's Jewish tradition.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody sins against you, you can forgive them three times.
SPEAKER_00: If they do it a fourth time, then no forgiveness for them.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't really mean it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: So Peter doubles it and adds one.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, seven.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says to him, I did not say seven times, verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't.
SPEAKER_00: Who said seven?
SPEAKER_00: But 70 times seven.
SPEAKER_00: And you're missing the point, by the way, if you're doing the math on your notebook right now.
SPEAKER_00: Stop it.
SPEAKER_00: Because you'd have to keep a record of wrongs, you know.
SPEAKER_00: The point is you're constantly having the attitude of forgiveness towards those who have sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, verse 23, the therefore is huge.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is telling a story to answer Peter's question.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of heaven is compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants or slaves.
SPEAKER_00: When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents.
SPEAKER_00: 10,000 talents is a comical amount of money.
SPEAKER_00: I told you earlier the point is not the math, but I did the math.
SPEAKER_00: 10,000 talents, a laborer would have to work 60 million days or roughly 193,000 years to earn that much money.
SPEAKER_00: You're talking absurd.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be like in English.
SPEAKER_00: A laborer owed him 100 gazillion batrillion dollars.
SPEAKER_00: Like, how many zeros are in batrillion?
SPEAKER_00: Not the point.
SPEAKER_00: I just made the number up right there.
SPEAKER_00: That's how much the guy owes.
SPEAKER_00: And the king goes to get it from him.
SPEAKER_00: This is a made-up story.
SPEAKER_00: It's designed to be over the top for comedic effect.
SPEAKER_00: It's in fact, one commentary says uh the amount of money is so extreme the story is likely hyperbolic.
SPEAKER_00: You don't say.
SPEAKER_00: The whole taxes collected in all of Palestine, Israel, and the neighboring nations in the year that Matthew was written was 8,000 talents, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: So this is like an it's a million times the GDP of the nation.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the guy's.
SPEAKER_00: You get the point.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's comical.
SPEAKER_00: So the king wants to settle and get his money from him, so he brings the guy to him, verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy owes him a bazillion gatrillion dollars, verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: The guy couldn't pay, so the master ordered him to be sold with his wife and his children and all that he had for payment to be made.
SPEAKER_00: Which it's still comical, right?
SPEAKER_00: The guy owes a gazillion of a trillion dollars, so you're gonna sell him and his family.
SPEAKER_00: And what is that gonna get you?
SPEAKER_00: Like a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent?
SPEAKER_00: The point is the guy has no capacity to pay no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: One commentary was saying, like, I wonder what kind of servant in the Roman Empire would have access to that line of credit.
SPEAKER_00: Missing the point.
SPEAKER_00: So the servant, verse 26, falls on his knees, imploring him.
SPEAKER_00: Have patience with me and I'll pay you everything.
SPEAKER_00: So give me another week and I can pay it all, which is absurd.
SPEAKER_00: Out of pity for him, verse 27, the master and his servant released him and forgave him the debt.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that the master didn't release him and say, Go try really, really hard, because the guy can't do it, is the point.
SPEAKER_00: No way he could do it.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not an issue of go try harder, go get her raised, go take it on the second job.
SPEAKER_00: The second job won't help.
SPEAKER_00: He forgives it.
SPEAKER_00: That same servant is now released.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 28, he goes out and he finds one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred deneri.
SPEAKER_00: A hundred deneri, that's three months of salary.
SPEAKER_00: So one picture what you make in your in your mind.
SPEAKER_00: Say you make$100,000 a year, that's a fourth of it.
SPEAKER_00: $25 grand.
SPEAKER_00: So this is not an inconsequential amount.
SPEAKER_00: The guy goes out, was just forgiven a gazillion patrillion dollars, and finds some dude who owes him$25,000.
SPEAKER_00: That's a significant debt.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's a made up story, but you could picture a person being forgiven an absurd amount of money and still having a record of that guy still owes me$25 grand.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, let's be honest, he owes me$25 grand.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go ask for it.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy, the guy doesn't have it.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, his fellow servant pleased with him and says, Have patience with me and I'll pay you.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 30, he refused, went and put it.
SPEAKER_00: In prison, so he should pay the debt.
SPEAKER_00: Back in verse 28, he was choking him, trying to choke out the 25 grand from choking him until he'd pay.
SPEAKER_00: Throws him in the slammer.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the guy can't get 25 grand in the slammer.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 31, his servants heard about this.
SPEAKER_00: They were greatly distressed, and so they reported to their master all that had taken place.
SPEAKER_00: The master summoned the man and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you that debt because you pleaded with me.
SPEAKER_00: Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you, and in anger his master delivered him to the jailers until he could pay all of his debt, the gazillion of a trillion dollars.
SPEAKER_00: Which the point is he can't pay.
SPEAKER_00: Now it does not take a lot of work here to get the characters of the story identified.
SPEAKER_00: It is the so-called Christians that have had their debt forgiven by God to the tune of an infinite amount of debt that are then bitter against people who have sinned against them in different ways.
SPEAKER_00: And they're trivial sins.
SPEAKER_00: And when I say trivial sins, I'm not making light of how people have sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying in comparison to a gazillion patrillion dollars, 25 grand might be significant, but not compared to what you owe the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, the person lied about you.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the person said you had an affair and accused you of murder and put you on trial and wrecked your life.
SPEAKER_00: It is pennies on the dollar.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus makes that clear in verse 35.
SPEAKER_00: So my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you don't forgive your brother from the heart.
SPEAKER_00: And that what he's gonna do to you is throw you in jail and so you can pay your whole penalty, which is, of course, impossible.
SPEAKER_00: You can go back to Matthew 6.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Jesus means.
SPEAKER_00: That parable was told to illustrate Matthew chapter 6, where Jesus says, if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: Unless God pardons your everyday many sins, which are innumerable in so many ways, unless God forgave them, you would have no hope.
SPEAKER_00: But because God forgives you your sins in Christ, that should motivate you to imitate him and forgive others.
SPEAKER_00: The heart that doesn't want to imitate God is a heart that has not experienced the grace of forgiveness that he offers.
SPEAKER_00: This is not saying that God is unwilling to forgive unforgiving people.
SPEAKER_00: It is saying that unforgiving people are generally unwilling to be forgiven by God.
SPEAKER_00: Contrast with Stephen, the martyr of the church, was literally stoned to death.
SPEAKER_00: And his last words were praying for the forgiveness of those who did it.
SPEAKER_00: That's Acts 7, verse 60.
SPEAKER_00: Probably the best extra-biblical example of this that I can think of.
SPEAKER_00: June 2015.
SPEAKER_00: The Charleston Church shooting.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure most of you remember this shooting.
SPEAKER_00: Dylan Roof entered Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and shot scores of people, killing nine, one of which was seven-year-old Ethel Lance.
SPEAKER_00: He was arrested.
SPEAKER_00: At his arraignment, the judge allowed victims to speak, which is incredibly unusual at an arraignment.
SPEAKER_00: I've never heard of it before.
SPEAKER_00: I guess it was at the request of the Charleston mayor.
SPEAKER_00: The judge allowed victims or family members of the victims to speak.
SPEAKER_00: One of the family members of Ethel Lance, her daughter, told Dylan, Quote, You took something precious from me, but I forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: 26-year-old Tywanza Sanders was shot.
SPEAKER_00: She survived by playing dead, and she said, Quote, I forgive you, and my family forgives you.
SPEAKER_00: Another, a grandson, the grandfather was killed, said, I'm a work in progress.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have room for revenge.
SPEAKER_00: So I must forgive.
SPEAKER_00: I could read quote after quote after quote.
SPEAKER_00: So when I say you're supposed to have an attitude of forgiveness towards those who have sinned against you, I'm not trying to be naive about the gravity of crimes.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have experienced things worse than I just described.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you experienced people lying against you, trying to harm you and wreck you, and that's the most extreme you can imagine.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have experienced things more extreme than any of the examples I use today.
SPEAKER_00: The point is your attitude towards others is that of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Because we have been forgiven by a forgiving God.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're thankful that you do forgive those who come to you through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We don't forgive others because they deserve it, just as you did not forgive us because we deserved it.
SPEAKER_00: We have forgiven others because of your kindness towards us in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We're grateful for that kindness.
SPEAKER_00: Pray for anyone here today that has never experienced that kindness for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that they would turn to you and receive the forgiveness that comes through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's in his name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.