Sermon –Forgive Like Your Father

Sermon –Forgive Like Your Father April 24, 2005

Intro
A man lay dying on his bed as his wife sat beside him to bring comfort. She was compassionately listening to him moan in a semi-conscious state, lovingly wiping the sweat off his brow. Just before expiring the man woke and saw his dear wife looking sadly into his eyes. He gathered his little remaining strength to speak to her. It seemed he wanted to make a deathbed confession. He said, “Dear, I have not been faithful to you.”

She was not moved and only replied, “Yes dear, I know.”

He went on, “But wife, I have cheated on you many times. I have been a sorry, pathetic excuse of a husband. I never deserved you.”

The wife replied, “Honey, don’t trouble yourself about it. I know all about your unfaithfulness; all those other women. Why do you think I poisoned you?”

Lifestyle Forgiveness
We are talking today about lifestyle forgiveness. It is a critical subject because the alternative, un-forgiveness, acts like a poison. However, unlike this little story, the poison of un-forgiveness does not act on the one who made the original mistake. Instead, it poisons the one who keeps account of the wrong.

What do I mean by poison? There are several portals into the human soul by which demonic activity can enter and create havoc. An example of such a portal is dabbling in the occult. Once we play with witchcraft, demons can enter and are only driven out by much prayer and fasting (Mat 17:20) and intervention of prayer warriors. According to 1 Cor. 6, sex outside marriage is another of these portals. Our topic today, un-forgiveness, is also a portal. Lives are turned sour, joy is stolen, and health is ruined when a demon of un-forgiveness has been granted entrance.

We are going to cover two aspects of forgiveness: Forgiving the past and avoiding new offenses.

Forgiving the Past
Here is the theme passage for forgiving the past. To help explain this I am going to give names to these characters.

Matt 18:21-35
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"

22 Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

23 "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. (We’ll call him Ebenezer.) 25 Since he (Ebenezer) was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

26 "The servant (Ebenezer) fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' 27 The servant's (Ebenezer’s) master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

28 "But when that servant (Ebenezer) went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. (We call him Sorry Sam.) He (Ebenezer) grabbed him (Sorry Sam) and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.

29 "His fellow servant (Sorry Sam) fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

30 "But he (Ebenezer) refused. Instead, he went off and had the man (Sorry Sam) thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

32 "Then the master called the servant (Ebenezer) in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant (Sorry Sam) just as I had on you?' 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he (Ebenezer) should pay back all he owed.

35 "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

Scales of Sin
I have here a scale used for measuring. We will demonstrate God’s message to us with this scale. On this side we will put the sin against us of whomever hurt us. Let’s assume that sin is large, they did something terrible to us. Whatever the offense was it was huge so we are going to use a large spike to represent that sin. (Place spike on scale.) In Verse 26 it said the servant owed his fellow servant a hundred denarii. That would be equal to about 100 days wages, so by my estimate this should be at least an $8,000 spike.

On the other side of the scale we are going to place all our sins. Notice in His parable Jesus is not comparing sins between Ebenezer and Sorry Sam. Rather, Jesus compares the debt Sorry Sam owed Ebenezer to the debt Ebenezer owed the master. So on this other side of our scale belongs, not our sins against the person we injured, but our sins against God.

Let’s put on the scale that first act of defiance we made as a child after we were aware of God’s accountability of sin. (Small nail on scale.) Here is that first little lie, and the second lie, in fact, every lie, mistruth or exaggeration we ever made. (Handful of nails.) Then here is the first time we were unkind (one nail) and every other unkindness (Handful, and cont.). We need to put in taking what belonged to others, and every word spoken behind a back, and in fact every thought that was impure or selfish. And of course there is over-eating, laziness, pride, greed, lust, worrying, etc. Verse 24 says the man owed the master ten thousand talents. That would equal between 10 and 12 million US dollars. On one side we have an $8,000 sin, on the other a 12 million dollar pile of sins against God. I think we begin to see Jesus’ point. Now, what happens to the person who will not forgive one who sinned against them when all their sins against God have been erased? Let’s re-read the summary of these verses:

MT 18:34-35 In anger his master turned 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 from your heart."

According to the Bible (Mat 5:23, 24) un-forgiveness results in blocked prayers and as we just read, un-forgiveness from God himself. We begin to see why un-forgiveness is such a major portal for letting eternal havoc into our souls.

George Herbert
He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven.

Remember from last week that God has adopted us into His family. He wants us to look like His sons and daughters—to look like Him. God forgives and he wants us to have a lifestyle of forgiveness. Lifestyle forgiveness means looking closely at our hearts and forgiving anyone for which we get that “I-want-to-get-away” feeling when we see them come into a room or when we think about them. This includes those who injured us but have since passed away or moved out of our lives. We must go into deep prayer about those we hold grudges against and be cleansed of the poison of the memory. Often it is healthy to write a letter of forgiveness to the person. It is not usually wise to actually send the letter because our motive may be to remind them of how they hurt us and not to forgive. So write the forgiveness letter, pray over it, then destroy it.

Neither Judge Nor Accountant
Forgiveness is more for the forgiver than the forgiven. When we hold on to a record of someone else’s wrong it hurts us more then it hurts them. That is why the Bible tells us we are not to be the judge or accountant, keeping track of who did what against us.

1 Cor 13:4-5
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

It is an effort of futility to keep track of what is owed us because it cannot be repaid anyway. The offender does not have the resources as we saw in the parable. Remember in verse 25 it said:

MT 18:25 Since he was not able to pay…

Since he was unable to pay, the master forgave him. It is important to acknowledge we are forgiving that which the perpetrator could never pay and so it makes no sense to wait for them to make us whole again.

Jesus is able to make us whole again. Jesus is also qualified and able to act as judge and he will do just that at the end of time. No wrong is ever thrown at a child of God that is not recorded for judgment. If the perpetrator has not been cleansed by the blood of Christ, they will be held accountable.

2 Thess 1:6-10
6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

RO 12:19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.

Rev 20:12-15
12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

A Conscious Choice
This is Christ’s court, not ours. Judgment is His jurisdiction, not ours. We have to make a conscious choice: are we willing to accept the fact that we have been wronged and the offender will never make us whole, but we are going to bless them anyway by forgiving and transferring the case to Christ’s jurisdiction, or, do we want to keep the offense in our mind where the poison can eat at us? That is the bottom line choice. Forgive or suffer.

Before we move on I want to add one more Biblical teaching on forgiving past debts. There is a difference between how we treat a repentant offender and a non-repentant offender. There is no difference in how we forgive them, but there is a difference in our future actions. We are responsible to God to avoid an environment where they can sin against us by the same offense. We forgive them, we turn them over to Christ’s jurisdiction, we love them, but we may have to pull away or take precautions so they cannot continue to sin against us. If your situation falls into this category, look up and follow Matthew 18:15-17 and come get counsel from the elders.

Avoiding New Offenses
First let’s define offense. Offense is from the Greek root meaning the string that led from a trap to the bait. You pull on the string, which is the offense, and slam! (Use mouse trap as an analogy and trip the “offense”.) We all experience many opportunities to be offended every day. Offense is unavoidable in minor issues like in traffic, and in major issues, like abuse or a cheating spouse. Whether the offense is intentional or not, the question is whether we will choose to immediately drop the offense, or hold on until the Devil’s trap closes and lets in the poison of un-forgiveness.

PR 17:14 Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.

Lifestyle forgiveness means that dropping an offense becomes our natural first reaction. We must let go of it, release it from our minds before the trap swings closed.

Lk 6:27 Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

A great way to accomplish this is every time the offense comes back into your mind, use it as a reminder to immediately begin praying for specific blessings to come to the offender. This is not praying, “Oh Lord, help them see how they have hurt me,” but, “Lord, bring blessing and healing into their life.”

So there you have it, forgive past sins against you and avoid taking up new offenses. The greatest gift Jesus gave us is forgiveness. The second greatest gift is the power to live with forgiveness toward others.

Some of us need to forgive God something we are subconsciously holding Him responsible for. Some of us need to forgive ourselves. As we move into our communion time let’s use it to examine our hearts and see where we need to live out the forgiveness we are called to.
Prayer