Burdens and Freedom - On Forgiveness

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Transcript

Audio Edit - Burdens and Freedom

Anush: Good morning 

in 2002, Dhirubhai Ambani the founder of reliance industries died after suffering a massive stroke. He did not leave a will. His two sons took over his company, the older one becoming the chairman and the younger one becoming the vice chairman, but there was constant rift between the two  finally, their mother got involved and forced them to split the company, so that one brother had one part of the company. The other brother had the other part of the company. Still, even though they live very close to each other, they would continuously fight.

They would take out ads against each other's company. They would Sue each other's company and they would blame each other's company, when things went wrong, The courts got involved to try to get them to work together. Finally, the Indian finance minister begged them to work together so as to not upset the market, because you see at that time, Mukesh Ambani had a net worth of $27 billion dollars and Anil Ambani had a net of $8.8 billion. The rift between them would continue as long as there was power and money involved. A rift was created between God and humans when sin got involved, when sin came in the middle and as long as sin exists, as long as we have sin, there is always going to be that rift between God and us.

Sin is going to be a problem until we go to heaven. Therefore forgiveness is going to be a necessity until we go to heaven.

This morning in a sermon entitled burdens and freedom, I want to look at the issue of forgiveness.  texts that was given to me is from Psalm 51. So what we're going to do is we're going to read some verses from it, not the whole chapter, but some verses from it.

Let's all read these few verses together. Alright.  Have mercy on me. Oh God. According to your unfailing, love, according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. So you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth. Sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Create in me, a pure heart O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence or take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. 

This morning, I want to talk about three burdens and a freedom related to forgiveness. 

The first burden is the burden of being unforgiven. The burden of being unforgiven. It was the burden of being unforgiven that caused David to write the psalm. He was aware of his sin and it bothered him. When we are aware of our sins, it bothers us and it troubles us and it burdens us.

But sin is a variable burden. Not everybody is bothered by sin and we are not bothered by every sin we do equally. There are many variables that affect the burden of sin, but let me point to two. Two variables that affect the burden of sin. Now, like I said,  there are many, the burden of sin changes with the perception and the reality of the offendee.

the burden of sin changes with the perception and the reality of the offendee. 

First let's look at the perception of the offendee.. So if we did a sin against somebody based on what we think about them, the burden of sin increases or decreases. So  if I think that I am somebody and I sin against somebody else, then because I think I'm somebody I'm not really bothered by the sin, or if I think that the other person is a nobody.

Whether they are nobody or not. If I think there are nobody, then I'm not bothered by the sin because my perception of the offendee is such. The classic example is what has happened in the recent past,  where men in power have abused their positions and abused their subordinates.

Why? Because they thought that they were somebody and they thought that the other person was a nobody. And so their perception of the offendee caused them to abuse them and sin and not have the burden of sin. 

Second is the reality of the offendee.. It is a burden, depending on who we have offended, it is a burden depending on who we have offended.

So the burden of sin depends on the status of the offendee. The  example has been given by John Phillips in his book, exploring Romans where he said, suppose a hot tempered Marine struck a fellow Marine in his barracks. He may get a few days detention. Suppose he struck his Sergeant he may get a few weeks detention. Suppose he struck his, his commanding officer.

He would get a few months detention, but suppose he attempted to strike the visiting president of the United States. He may be executed on the spot. You see, the crime is the same: one fellow man striking another fellow man. But depending on the status and the dignity of the offendee, the punishment changes, and therefore the guilt changes depending on who the offendee is.

The reality is that all sin is against God. So in the chapter that we read Psalm 51, verse four, David said, "against you, you only have I sinned". How did he sin against God? He sinned against Bathsheba because he thought that he was somebody. He sinned against Uriah because he thought that Uriah was a nobody.

How did he sin against God? Because all sin at the end is against God. The more we realize this, that the burden of even the smallest sin then increases infinitely because God is infinite. So any sin against your neighbor is a sin against God. Any sin against your colleague is a sin against God. Any sin against your family member is a sin against God. Any sin against a fellow believer is a sin against God, any sin against yourself, is a sin against God and the burden rises infinitely because the offendee's status and dignity is infinite. Hence the need for constant forgiveness. If we have not asked for forgiveness, we carry around the burden of unforgiven sin.

And so in Psalm 51, verse three, it reads for, I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me. I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Unforgiven sin is always in front of your face. If you have not read the. tragedy by William Shakespeare called Macbeth.

Let me just give you a gist of it. Macbeth was a, warrior. He was not the Supreme power, but he was second in command. He went out and won wars and on his way back, he was met by three witches who prophesied that he would become. And based on the prophecy and at the behest of his wife, he goes and kills his Lord king Duncan.

And he is traumatized by this. He has a guilty conscience with it. And several days later, he keeps waking up in the middle of the night and asked this question: where is that knocking coming from? What is happening to me that I am frightened of every noise whose hands are these? Will all great Neptunes oceans wash this blood clean from my hand. No, instead my hands will stain the seas scarlet turning the green waters red. We carry around the guilt of unforgiven sin. 

Second let's look at the burden.of repeated sin. We have done a sin and we got forgiveness. now, what? You see, forgiveness is not the end point.. Sinlessness is the end point. Forgiveness is a stop on the way to sinlessness. In the ideal world we sin, we got corrected and we will never sin again.

And we won't do the same sin again or similar sins again. But we all know that that's not how it happens. if you have kids, you tell your kids, you know, did you brush your teeth in the morning? No. Okay. We've told you 10,000 times to brush your teeth before you come down or did you put the dishes away?

No, and they just stand there. Okay. Do you know what to do next? Okay. Put the dishes away. So we have to tell the same things over and over and over, and we continue to repeat our old sins, our old tendencies, even the things that we know that we are not supposed to do.. 

Even though we know the burden, even though we know the consequences, even though we know the pain of a sin, we continue to repeat a sin. Why, why do we sin repeatedly? I want to give you three reasons why we sin repeatedly. 

We sin because we are wired to sin. We have temperamental weaknesses. Some people are more prone to anger. Some are more prone to lust. Some are more prone to laziness. Some are more prone to indiscipline, lack of self control, fear, worry, and we are wired a certain way. so we're not dealing with just sins.. We are dealing with sin with a capital S. We are dealing with the sin nature. So in Psalm 51, verse five, it reads surely I was sinful at birth sinful from the time my mother conceived me. I'm not trying to give us an excuse to sin. We have no excuse to sin, whether we have temperamental weaknesses or whether we are prone to sin a certain sin or not. We have no excuse to sin. So none of this is an excuse to sin. God will still hold us culpable. 

Secondly, we sin repeatedly because it is wrong to sin.

Romans chapter seven, verse five, seven, and eight reads for when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law. Let me just stop there for a second. The sinful passions aroused by the law, knowing the law raises sinful passions in us. And so you'll think, well, isn't the law sin.

if law is stimulating sin, isn't the law sin. And so Paul says, what shall we say then verse seven is the law sinful. Certainly not. Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was, had it not been for the law for, I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said you shall not covet, but sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment produced in me, every kind of coveting for a part from the law sin was dead.

Okay. I did not know what coveting was, but when I heard the command do not covet, it produced in me every kind of coveting. I did not know what lost was when, but when I heard the command do not last or do not kill or do not fear.. That law produced in me, the very thing it was trying not to produce. That's why, when we see a bench that says fresh paint, do not touch whether we touch it or not the instinct is to touch it.

So then that raises a huge problem because how do we tell our kids to do or not do something? Because the moment you have told them to do or not do something, they want to do the exact opposite. Just the same for us. When God tells us to do or not do something, we want to do exactly what we are told not to do.

So, knowing about sin doesn't rectify it. In fact, it makes it worse. 

The third reason why we sin repeatedly is because we want to sin.. Sure we ask forgiveness. Sure. We are contrite. Sure. We have remorse. Sure. We are sad that we displease God, yet deep down in our hearts, we want to sin.

There is a dark side to sin. Turn your Bibles. If you will, to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 25, Hebrews 1125.

this is a faith chapter talking about the heroes of the faith. And this particular context is talking about Moses. Look what it says in verse 25. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God, rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures. Did you catch that? Let me read it again. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God, rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasure of sin.

Sin is a pleasure. It is a fleeting pleasure, but as a pleasure, nonetheless, there is something alluring about sin. That's why in spite of all the negative things about sin, we continue to sin because we are allured by the pleasure of sin. It is a pleasure to not forgive. It is a pleasure to lust. It is a pleasure to be angry.

It is a pleasure to, plan revenge. It is a pleasure to sin and therefore we continue to sin. I'm not giving an excuse to sin. God will still hold us accountable. So Paul says in Romans chapter seven, verse 24. What a wretched man, I am, who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death. This is a reference to the Roman custom of punishment of a murderer.

The Romans were experts at devising torture methods. What they did for a murderer is that they took the murdered body and chained it to the murderer and he was free to go wherever he wanted,  nobody was supposed to help him, obviously. And in the Eastern sun, the body would putrefy and turn disgusting and remind the murderer of what he had done.. And so when Paul uses this, he's saying that we carry around this burden, this corpse that is connected to us. And so the psalmist pleads for inner permanent change. That's the only thing that can help us.

So in Psalm chapter 51, verse 10 reads create in me a pure heart, oh God. And renew a steadfast spirit within me. After Romans chapter seven is Romans chapter eight, where it talks about the freedom of the spirit that is able to set us free from this wretched body of death.

It's the blood of Christ and the filling of the spirit that will set us free from this body of death. like the old hymn says, would you be free from the burden of sin? There's power in the blood. Power in the blood Would you or evil a victory when there's wonderful power in the blood?

We looked at the burden of being unforgiven. We looked at the burden of repeated sin and thirdly, let's look at the burden of forgiveness.

We have been forgiven. We must forgive. Some people have a difficult time forgiving themselves, but most of the time we have no difficulty for giving ourselves. In fact, the problem is that we forgive ourselves too quickly and because we forgive ourselves too quickly, we kind of rush into sin. But we need to forgive everyone.

We all know that parable. Matthew chapter 18. Let me give a, a quick summary of it. There was a king who had a servant and the servant owed him a lot of money. He came and begged him and asked him to be let go from his debt. The master took pity on him and said, okay, I will wipe your debt away. And the man goes away happy until he meets his servant who owes him a few dollars or a few denari.

And he catches him by his throat and says, you're gonna pay me everything that you owe me. And the second seven says, please let me go. I don't have the money. And the forgiven servant says, no, you will go to prison until you give me my last dime. And then we catch the story in verse 32, then the master called the servant in you wicked servant, he said, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you. In anger, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.

We know what we need to do. We know that we need to forgive. We've heard the logic behind it. We've heard that we are trapped in a cage unless we forgive. We know that we have been forgiven yet. We choose not to forgive.

Maybe it's because of the alluring nature of sin, where we want to be the eternally offended party. Maybe we, we want to sit in the corner and lick our wounds and be self-righteous and play the self-victim. Or maybe it is because we forget our ongoing sin and our constant need for forgiveness and that our sin is bigger than any sin anybody else has done to us.

The Ravensbruck concentration camp held up to 130,000 people through those six years in Northern Germany. It was a concentration camp for women and there were children also in it. Found in the clothing of a dead child at Ravensbruck concentration camp are these words, Oh Lord, remember not only the men and women of Goodwill, but also those of ill will, but do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted upon us.

Instead, remember the fruits we have borne because of the suffering, our fellowship, our loyalty to one another, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart that has grown from this trouble. When our persecutors come to be judged by you let all of these fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness,

ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing that anyone has done to you that is worse than what was done to the folks at the Ravensbruck concentration camp.

we carry the burden of unforgiven sin. We carry the burden of repeated sin. We carry the burden of forgiveness and fourthly. 

We have the freedom of forgiveness. What really happens in forgiveness. We ask God for forgiveness and he forgives us what really happens? To understand what really happens in forgiveness we need to understand what really happens in sin. What is it that happens in sin? Yes. We break the law. Yes. The Greek word for sin means a target. It's missing the target. And so there's a target. And if you hit anywhere else, that sin it's missing the target. But there is something else that happens when we sin. 

To illustrate this, I'm going to give you two scenarios. Let's say that you are driving down the highway in Athens, in your car and the speed limit was 80 kilometers an hour. And you're cruising along at a hundred kilometers an hour. And soon enough, there is a cop that comes behind you in their car or their motorbike.

However, they come and they pull you over. They flash their lights, they pull you over and you come to the side and the cop comes and says, you were going a hundred kilometers an hour on an 80 kilometer, an hour zone. Here's your ticket. Let me give you another scenario. If a husband cheats on the wife, if a husband cheats on his wife, you know what the wife is not going to do, the wife is not going to say, let me go get the covenant that you recited to me on the day of my wedding on the day of our wedding.

Because in that you said, till death, do us part., she's not going to do that. You know what she's going to do instead, she's going to say you hurt me. You betrayed. You see the difference in one, there is a relationship. There is no cop. That's going to come to you and say, okay, sir, you're going hundred kilometers in an 80 kilometer zone.

Here's your ticket. You hurt me. You betrayed me. They will never say that because there is no relationship.,

. The relationship is so much bigger than the law. That is what happened in sin. Sin broke the relationship between God and us. That's what happened in the garden of Eden, not just that Adam ate the fruit that he was told not to eat. Rather. He broke the relationship. SIM came and broke the relationship between Adam and God.

And therefore forgiveness restores that relationship, not just based on the law, but it restores a broken relationship that sin destroyed. So Psalm 51 verse 11 and 12 reads do not cast me from your presence or take your holy spirit from me, restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.

And in the case of God, that restored relationship leads to love and worship. So in 14 and 15, it reads deliver me from,  the guilt of bloodshed. Oh God, you who are God, my savior and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. 

The more we are forgiven the more we love God. The more we are forgiven, the more we love God. There's an account of a story in Luke chapter seven, where a Pharisee invited Jesus to come to his house for lunch, but didn't treat him well. Jesus came for lunch. As he sat reclining at the table, a woman came up behind them. Mary came up behind them and she was a sinner and she was in tears and she came up behind him poured.

Perfume on his feet washed it with her hair and her tears and the Pharisee things who was this man, if it were a prophet, he would know that it's a sinner that  is touching him. And now we enter the story in Luke chapter seven. Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, do you see this woman?

I came to your house. You did not give me any water for your feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman from the time I entered has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put all on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet.

Therefore, I tell you her many sins have been as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven, little, loves little, whoever has been forgiven much loves much. Whoever has been forgiven, little love, little. That's the point of this story, but I want to turn it around just a little bit and look at a perspective from the forgiver.

We, we tend to look at the forgiven person in the story. I want to look at the forgiver and for that, let me give an illustration. Suppose I was walking between these tables with my seven year old son and Brad kind of stepped back and he was talking to his friends. he was catching up on some old friends, and he stepped back and he stepped on my son's toe and he said, oh I'm so sorry. And I said, oh, that's okay.

He's fine, its just toe, its fine.. Instead, instead, suppose he was talking to drew and catching up and he stepped back and instead of stepping on, my son stole, he fell on my son and he paralyzed him from the neck down. Now, if he says, oh, I'm so sorry. It requires more of me to forgive him. Doesn't it? Yeah. If every sin is an infinite sin, it requires infinite sacrifice for God to pronounce  forgiveness to you for that sin.

For a forgiver to forgive much the bigger sacrifice had to be made. Yeah.

Despite the tremendous cost, why does God forgive us to restore the relationship that was broken? Forgiveness restores a relationship at a great personal cost to the one forgiving. 

Corrie ten boom was a Dutch Christian, who, along with her family, her, dad, who was a watchmaker and her family hid Jews in their little home and rescued them from the Nazis during world war two.

And they were imprisoned for it. In her book, tramp for the Lord. She said how she and her sister were tortured and abused at the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Her sister died at the Ravensbruck concentration camp, but she got out of it. She was one of the few people that got out of the camp. And she was speaking at a church in Munich, years later. And after she finished her sermon her talk, a man came up to her and said, I'm so-and-so. I was a guard at the Ravensbruck concentration camp. The guard did not remember her because there were thousands of prisoners, but Corrie 10 boom, remembered the guard and what he had done to her and her sister and the man put out his hand and said, will you forgive me. For a moment she hesitated because she remembered everything that had been done to her. Then not being able to forgive she prayed quickly and said, Lord Jesus, I cannot forgive. I will raise my hand, you supply the feeling. And so as she woodenly, trust her handout, she says that the healing warmth of God flowed through her and into him.

And she writes that she's never felt the love of God as intensely as she felt at that moment,

God, through Jesus has forgiven us our sins. He's forgiven us our repeated sins. He's restored the relationship and he wants us to do the same to each other. We're going to go into a time of communion now, and I'm going to take about five minutes. We're going to confess our unforgiven sin. We are going to confess our repeated sin. We're going to confess our sin of not forgiving and in one new page, write down the name of every person that you need to forgive.

And as I say this, those people are coming to your mind. write down the name of every person that you need to forgive. They need your forgiveness and we need to forgive them. And we're going to take about five minutes, write it down. And once you written it down, you're going to pray forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a unilateral thing. You don't need them to ask you for forgiveness for you to forgive them. When Jesus was on the cross, he said, father, forgive them for, they do not know what they do.. They didn't ask for forgiveness and they didn't even know. He just forgave them. So we are going to unilaterally, forgive people that have offended us and we cannot hold a grudge.

So once we write down the names of every single person that we need to forgive, and you will find that as you write down the name, everything within you will rise up in opposition because you don't want to forgive.. It is a human thing not to forgive. It is a God thing to forgive. And once you've written down all the names, and once you forgiven them, them, you can tear it up symbolic of the fact that you forgive them.

Then after that, we will into a time of communion.

If we have unconfessed sin in our hearts, we should not partake of the communion. It will bring us trouble. the Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed, took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is we do this in remembrance of me. In the same way after supper, he took the cup saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me. So whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Friends, let's partake of the communion together.

heavenly father. We thank you. We thank you for your sacrifice.

it was a price I could not pay Lord God.

And because you made it free for me, I don't even know the cost of it.

thank you for that infinite sacrifice for the infinite burden of sin. In Jesus' name. Amen.