Forgive as You Are Forgiven

Well, thank you again, gentlemen, and once again, happy Sabbath to each and every one of you.

Recently, many of us have been thinking about the upcoming spring holy days. A lot of our messages have been talking about the Passover and the days of Unleavened Bread and the metaphor of their meaning for the New Covenant Church of God. And today, I'd like to continue this theme as we ponder the Passover now about six weeks away. I'd like to talk about a fundamental quality of both Christianity and Judaism, where the concept actually began, and it's perhaps the most neglected quality in the world. And it's very difficult to live by. The lack of this quality is the cause for many lingering problems in the world and in our lives. It's a very basic concept. It's called forgiveness. Forgiveness is easy to talk about. Oh, we just love to talk about forgiveness, and it's so woven into our form of communication in the Western world, but it is very difficult to do. So let's begin with a really good definition of forgiveness from a biblical sense. I'm going to quote a paragraph here from the Holman's Bible Dictionary under the word forgiveness. I think they do a really good job here. Quote, An act of God's grace to forget forever and not hold people of faith accountable for the sins they confess to a lesser degree, the gracious human act of not holding wrong acts against a person. Forgiveness has both a divine and human dimension. In the divine relationship, it is, first of all, the gracious act of God by which believers are put into a right relationship to God and transferred from spiritual death to spiritual life through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Continuing, in this divine dimension, the ongoing gift of God, without which our lives as Christians would be out of joint or full of guilt.

In terms of the human dimension, forgiveness is that act, an attitude towards those who have wronged us, which restores relationships and fellowship. Forgiveness is a theme that goes throughout the scriptures, all the way back, beginning in Genesis chapter 3 and all the way through the book of Revelation. For example, in Genesis chapter 3 verse 21, it states, and this is after the sin of Adam and Eve, also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them. God did this to cover the shame of their nakedness. So, first of all, they had no sense of shame or guilt before they sinned. They were innocent, lived beautiful lives in this garden. Suddenly, they eat of the apple, which is a metaphor, and there was a literal apple, but it's also a metaphor for disobedience against God and accepting that little snake as your friend before God and being a part of this world. And immediately after they ate the apple, they felt a sense of shame, guilt. Suddenly, they feel naked. They feel like something's wrong. They didn't feel that way before, but now they feel dirty, guilty, shamed because they ate that apple. So, they create out of fig leaves a covering to cover themselves. And, of course, fig leaves aren't very permanent. I don't exactly know how they would have done that. Maybe they included the stems and somehow wove some little garments together. I can't even begin to imagine how they made garments for themselves out of fig leaves, but God thought that wasn't good enough. So, what he does is assist the Lord God made tunics of skin, something far more permanent, and clothed them. Again, God did this to cover the shame of their nakedness. They felt naturally a deep shame and a deep guilt for being naked. And God could have commanded them to live the rest of their lives naked in perpetual shame for that sin. But God didn't want them to live in perpetual shame and humiliation because he knows that shame, guilt, humiliation is emotionally and mentally debilitating. Instead, he begins the process of granting grace to the human race by personally making Adam and Eve a covering. This is a metaphor. He said, I don't want you to feel shamed your whole life. I want you to repent. I want a restored relationship. I don't want you to feel guilty and shamed. And rather than using this cheap token that you've made, I'm giving you a tunic of skin. And the Hebrew word means an animal skin. So an animal was killed and sacrificed so that that covering could be made for Adam and Eve. Here are a few more things to consider about this covering. Adam's own covering for his nakedness was barely adequate, but God provided a more suitable and durable covering. It's implied from the description of God's procuring skins, the clothes Adam and Eve, that an animal sacrifice occurred. This was the very first animal sacrifice of atonement for man's sin, which prefigured the death and the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ to forgive sins. This verse prefigured the necessity of the shedding of blood and the death of an innocent for the guilty. The animal was innocent. It certainly didn't participate in their sin. Yet its blood was shed. It was sacrificed so that they could be covered. Jesus Christ was the perfect Lamb of God. Yet He was sacrificed, and His shed blood and His sacrifice covers our sins, all of our transgressions against God's law. Let's see what Jesus stated about forgiveness. If you'll turn with me to Matthew chapter 6 and verse 9. Matthew chapter 6 and verse 9.

Jesus teaching His disciples.

He says in this manner, therefore pray, our Father in heaven, high, Lord, be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread. So we pray for the kingdom of God to come to this earth to stop all the human suffering and dysfunction. And then we ask that the needs of today not say, well take care of me the next 20 years, God, will you please? No. Give us this day our needs to get through this day, because the truth is we're not promised tomorrow in this physical body anyway, are we? We only have today. That's all we've got right now. So He continues, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. And then He expands upon what He meant by this phrase, forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors. Verse 14, for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. That's pretty powerful. Now, when we stand before the throne of God, do we want all of our sins and trespasses forgiven, or do we want 90% of them forgiven? Of course, we want all of our sins and trespasses forgiven. And that's the attitude that we should have towards others who have wronged us or hurt us in some way throughout our lifetimes. And it may be parents, it may be siblings, it may be people that we've known in the past, it may be people that we know in the present. No matter how we examine this scripture, there are no loopholes. Jesus places a responsibility on us. We pray to be forgiven, and we need to forgive others because the same degree that we forgive others, all or some remains, is the same degree that God will forgive us. All of our sins or some of our sins? It's our choice. In this sample prayer, the degree of forgiveness received by God is equal to the degree that we're willing to forgive others.

So do we practice this instruction? Or are those little hidden segments of bitterness resentment towards some individual in our minds and in our heads? Many years ago, I worked for a pastor who held grudges. He just held grudges. That was a terrible character flaw that he had. And when he turned against you, there was no way to win back his graces. When he turned against you, that was it. If he had something against one minister, he would call another minister and tell them to call that minister and pass a message on from him because he wouldn't call the person himself. That's how deeply and shamefully he held grudges. Brethren, we shouldn't be that way. Jesus Christ is our perfect example. And let's see what kind of example he had at his very crucifixion. Let's go to Luke chapter 23 and verse 32. Luke chapter 23 verse 32.

It says, there were also two others, criminals, led to be put to death. And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified him, referring to Jesus Christ, and the criminals, one on the right hand and one on the left, then Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. And they divided his garments and cast lots. Father, forgive them. In context, he's talking about the Roman soldiers who had beat him and crucified him. He's talking about the Jewish authorities who plotted behind his back to stab him in the back. Even while he's dying, while nailed to a wooden post, Jesus forgives those who have tortured him and have put him to death. This is how important the concept of forgiveness is to God. Think of his forgiveness against people who minutes ago had scourged him minutes ago, had driven nails through his hands and his feet. And yet, minutes later, he forgives them and he says, Father, forgive them. They're just carnal. They have no idea. They don't know how to live. They don't have your spirit. They've strayed from your way of life. Have mercy on them. Forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. They don't understand who I am. So please forgive them. Christ had already forgiven them in his mind. He publicly spoke these words to be recorded in Scripture for our benefit today. That's why that statement of his is preserved.

We could also look at the example of the Deacon Stephen. Let's turn to Acts 7 and verse 59. Acts 7 and verse 59. These are written in Scripture, the words of Jesus, or what Jesus said in the cross, I should say. And the last words of Stephen, they're written so that almost 2,000 years later, people can grasp the importance of forgiveness in God's sight. Acts 7 and verse 59. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, Lord, Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he knelt down and he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. When he said this, he fell asleep. Here's the example of an incredible Christian martyr. Luke records that this righteous man looked up and he saw Jesus Christ standing at the right-hand side of the Father in glory. And what did he say? Get them, God!

Fry these people! Make them suffer! No. Do not charge them with this sin.

What an incredible act of love towards people who are hurling stones at him. One time in my life, playing in a playground, I was hit in the head with a stone. And it didn't feel good. I can't imagine being pummeled with stone after stone after stone and the suffering and the torture you feel as you're taking these body blows from these large rocks and stones that are being hurled at you. What kind of Christian was he who was so blessed to see this miracle and whose example is recorded here for all of history, who was allowed to be able to look up to heaven and see Jesus Christ at the right-hand side of God the Father. Martin Luther didn't see that when he died. John Wesley didn't see that when he died. No pope has ever seen that when they died. Here was a simple believer who accepted Jesus as his Savior. And you know what? When you look at this point in history, he dutifully observed the Seventh-day Sabbath and Holy Days. He respected God's law. He never read one word from Paul's epistles because Paul wasn't writing yet. He hadn't been converted. He didn't accept a trinity because that was not a teaching in the church at this time for another 300 years. He didn't observe Christmas or Easter because he would have known what Christmas and Easter are. Those were also invented hundreds of years later. And he was fanatical enough to die for his faith. That's the kind of man when he looked up to heaven he saw Jesus Christ next to God the Father. And what were the last words he used before he died? He asked God to forgive his murderers and not hold their sin against them.

So how about us? Are we holding on the grudges? Resentment towards someone? Bitterness? The most common word used in the New Testament for forgiveness is ethe me, and it's used 15 times as a noun and 40 times as a verb. The basic root meaning of a Greek word that's translated forgiveness is sending away or letting go. I love that, particularly as letting go, because we have that phrase in our culture today. You see Placker to say, let it go, right? And that's what forgiveness means. Let it go. Move on. Forgive, forget, and move forward. There are four areas in life that we may need to forgive. Four areas where we may need to send away our grievances or let go of something, and that's what I would like to talk about in the next 15 to 20 minutes. We'll go a little bit over time today, and I apologize for that. Number one, the first area in which we need to let go is forgiveness of other people. That should be kind of obvious. Jesus talked about that. We've already read that. It is difficult to forgive others over a real or even a perceived wrong.

We've already seen in the Lord's Prayer at the death of Jesus and Stephen. They're both, they're examples, how important a quality forgiveness truly is. When we're willing or unable to forgive others, we may become repeat victims of the past and present. Because when we don't forgive other people, memories and experiences can still haunt us. They're still reviewed in our mind. We relive that painful episode over and over again because we refuse to let go. Because we hang on to that hurt, hang on to that grudge, hang on to that particular resentment. That is what anger does to us. It cripples our ability to move on and get the most out of the present when we're continuing to live in the past from a hurt or a slight or something that was said or done to us previously. And I've known many marriages crippled because of a lack of forgiveness.

Let's take a look at Matthew chapter 18 and verse 21. Jesus again speaks on this topic. Matthew chapter 18 and verse 21. Then Peter came to him and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me? And I forgive him up to seven times. He's implying, so the eighth time I don't have to forgive him? Tell me that it's so. And Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but 70 times seven. And again, that phrase is also metaphoric. He doesn't mean that 491 times, then you can stop. He means forever. You have to forgive a person forever. Therefore, the kingdom of God shall be like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him with 10,000 talents. But as he was not able to pay his master, he commanded that he be sold and his wife and children and all that he had about to be sold in the slavery. Form of slavery. And that payment would be, and that the payment be made. Verse 26, the servant therefore fell down before him saying, master, have patience with me and I will pay you all. And the master of that servant moved with compassion, released him, forgave him the debt. But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denari, just a fragment of the 10,000 talents that he had owed to his Lord. And he laid hands on him, and he took him by the throat, saying, pay me what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down at his feet, begged him, saying, have patience with me and I will pay you all. And he would not, but he went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. And when his fellow servant saw what had been done, they were very grieved. I thought, that's not fair. He'd been forgiven this great amount, yet he treats someone who owes him a little amount like he's a trashcan. They were very grieved. And they came and told their master all that had been done. Verse 32.

Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. You asked for forgiveness. You said you repented, and you asked me for mercy and forgiveness. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you? And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers, until he should pay all that was due to him. So my heavenly father will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother, his trespasses.

Pretty powerful. Again, I'm sure, you know, lots of people would like to do loopholes through that and find, you know, all kinds of ways that Jesus really didn't mean what he said here, but Jesus did mean what he says here. And what he says here is we can't be hypocrites if God forgives us of all of our sins, and he does, upon our repentance, we need to forgive other human beings, all human beings, all of their slights, their transgressions, their hurts against us.

Jesus warns us that an unforgiving attitude of contempt towards another is unacceptable.

The certain king is God the Father, the first servant, is a disciple who seeks repentance, and mercy, and forgiveness for sins, and who is worthy of death. But the Father has compassion and pity on the man, and he's completely forgiven his debt, which is sin. In turn, then, this disciple who has had so much forgiven refuses to forgive a brother who has slightly offended him, just a small amount compared to what he owed. He remains angry. He lays hands on the end of it. He grabs him by the throat, symbolizing an act of vengeance, of fury and anger, and refuses to forgive.

When the master hears of this, he condemns the ungrateful and unforgiving servant or disciple.

Matthew chapter 5 and verse 24 says, go, leave your gift at the altar. Go and make peace with that person. Then come and offer your gift. It's a good thing for us to realize before we come here to the Passover, before we pass the bread around, you take a piece of bread, and we pass that wine around, you take a little cup of wine to partake of the Passover. It's good for us to realize that go, leave your gift there at the altar. In other words, before you come to the Passover, go and make peace with that person, and then come and observe the Passover. Is there someone you need to forgive before Passover this year? Harboring anger, resentment, or a grudge? I know entire churches that have been formed, including one about 13 years ago, that was formed out of a grudge.

One group of ministers towards another group of ministers. It's created churches, church organizations. That's how bad grudges are. Unforgiveness. That's how divisive and destructive that it is. The second thing that we need forgiveness towards, maybe we need to let go, is forgiveness towards God. Now, please don't understand what I mean here.

God does not need to be forgiven of anything. He's perfect. He's holy. He's righteous. He's good. However, from our insides, we may become angry with God and harbor frustration and resentment towards Him because of our life circumstances. Maybe our life isn't where it should be, and we can often blame God. Maybe we're disappointed with something in the church, and we take it out on God.

We need to deal with these feelings before the Passover. They're certainly possible to become angry with God and not fully realize it. One of the things that you learn when you're an elder in the church is sometimes people say very unkind and rude things to me. Not because of me personally, but because as a minister I represent God, and they're angry with God. So who do you think they're going to take it out on? Sometimes they take it out on me, and that's okay.

I've got big shoulders. But some people are just very angry with God. Some people come to the church, and they think God is their vending machine. Just pull the lever and fix what I need fixed. Pull the lever, and instantly, presto, change-o, everything becomes good that I pray for.

As was mentioned in the previous sermon, that is not the way it works. God is not a genie. God is not a vending machine. He is a personal being who is interested in our long-term development. And if something that we pray for might be happy and fun right now but will not benefit us for eternity, God will often say no, not now, because he's interested in our long-term development, not our short-term happiness of today. There have been various breakups and splits in the church that have caused many to be angry with God.

Some of us have physical health problems. Some struggle with chronic discouragement. Some have had bad breaks in life, and it can cause us to be angry with God. We may not even realize it, but we're really mad at God. How come this happened? How come you haven't heard my prayers? And when trials mount up, it is easy to wonder where God is at. Why those things happened to us? Why did that happen to me? Many people secretly blame God for not being more than they are. That's what I mean when I say forgiveness towards God.

It's not God's problem. It's not God's fault. It's our conception, our misconception of who and what God is, and then ending up being angry with God. Let's see an example of a man who was angry with God. Jonah chapter 4. Let's go to Jonah chapter 4.

We'll begin in verse 1. The prophet Jonah was sent to Assyria to warn them of God's severe, impending judgment on this pagan nation. And Jonah didn't want to do this. You'll recall the story, I'm sure. He tried to flee to another direction if God intervened, had him swallowed by a large fish. He was, excuse my modern vernacular, puked up on a shore and realized that he had a mission and he was going to fulfill that mission or else.

And he repented and he went and he preached a message of judgment in the capital city, Nineveh. But then they did something that shocked Jonah that made him angry towards God because all along he knew this is a great God of mercy and compassion.

After all, I personally tried to run away from him and he didn't give up on me. Jonah knew that. And if these people repent, the Lord is going to relent and not destroy the city.

And that's exactly what happened. So what does Jonah do? He gets angry at God. See, oftentimes we are more angry with God than we personally accept or acknowledge in our lives. Jonah 4, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly that the people weren't destroyed. And he became angry. So he prayed to the Lord and said, Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore, I fled previously to Tarshish. For I know that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant and loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm.

Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. Then the Lord says, You're not being reasonable here. Get off the pitty pot.

Deal with it. And the Lord said, Is it right for you to be angry? Think about this, God says. Think about this. Did I give you a break when you ran away from me? Did I give you a second chance or not? Huh, Jonah? Then why wouldn't I give this city a second chance?

So Jonah went out of the city and he sat in the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah that it might shade his head and deliver him from his misery. The sun is hot in that part of the world. It can get very windy and dry. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant. Forget the people who live there. This is sure a cute little plant. I wonder if I can dig it up and take it back home with me. But as morning dawned, the next day, God prepared a worm and it damaged the plant and it withered. And it happened when the sun arose that God prepared a them in an east wind and the sun beat on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself and said, it is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, is it right for you to be angry about the plant? And he said, it is right for me to be angry, even to death. He's really angry at God, not at the plant. He's angry at God.

Who created the worm? Who allowed the worm to crawl up the plant and destroy it?

Verse 10. But the Lord said, You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in the night and perished in the night. It lasted one whole day, and you're concerned about the plant. And I should not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which more than 120,000 persons, that is, young children, who cannot discern between their right hand and their left and much livestock. So very small children. That's a lot. God says, why shouldn't I care about them? And they're small children. They have a future ahead of them. And you're sulking over a plant that existed one day. So who is Jonah really angry at? He's angry at God for not destroying the Ninevites. He is angry with them for repenting because he bitterly wanted them to die. Dead, gone, eradicated. That's what he wanted. He has more compassion about a plant than 120,000 small children. More absorbed in self-pity than attempting to discover what God is trying to teach him.

How about us, brethren, as we approach the Passover this year?

Are we angry at God for some reason? Maybe life hasn't turned out like we thought it would. Maybe we feel we're at a dead end. Maybe we feel like our prayers aren't being answered. So are we taking it out on God? Are we angry at the Church? Taking out our frustrations on other people? Holding resentments towards them?

The third and final area we need to let go is forgiveness of ourselves. Forgiveness of ourselves? I believe this is an insidious silent killer within the human race and also in the Church of God. It affects our self-image and it affects our worth. There are so many dysfunctions in our society and they often enter into our own families. It's easy, personally, to become very frustrated. Frustrated in our career. Maybe our career didn't turn out like we thought. Maybe we never had the income we deserved. Maybe we never had the promotions we thought we deserved. Maybe we never had a chance at a good education and regret not taking some opportunities to get a better education. Maybe we never had healthy relationships with other people or maybe the relationships we had turned bad. Maybe we struggled with our moral and ethical obligations. Maybe we struggle with our personal responsibilities of being providers and being there for people and encouraging others because of past experiences, because of our background and our personal weaknesses. Sometimes in life we make big mistakes. Not little mistakes. Life altering mistakes. And sometimes we even make really stupid mistakes. Stupid is not a theological term, by the way. Some of these mistakes can be life altering. And we pay the price for some of these mistakes our entire lifetimes, either physically, emotionally, or financially.

And we may certainly mistakenly feel that God or others who know us feel the same way about us as we do ourselves. So we transfer how we feel about ourselves and we say, that's how God feels about me. That's how my mate feels about me. That's how my brother feels about me. That's how the church members feel about me. The same way I feel about myself. The same frustrations. That's how everyone feels about me. But that's not what God intended. That is distorted thinking.

Again, just as God compassionately clothed Adam and Eve, the feelings of shame and guilt are not the feelings God intended people to carry with them throughout their lives, especially if He has called and forgiven them. They have repented of their sins. They are now disciples of Jesus Christ. And it's time for them to move forward in life. Remember a serious mistake that someone named Judas made? He betrayed his Savior, the same Savior who washed his feet on the final Passover that he observed? It states in Matthew, chapter 27, verse 4, Judas said to the chief priest and the elders, quote, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. And they said, what is that to us? He collected his 30 pieces of silver. And he said, you know, I've sinned. I shouldn't have done that. I feel bad. They say, it's your problem. It's not my problem. What is that to us? You see to it. You deal with your own guilt. You deal with your own shame. Verse 5, then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and he went and hanged himself.

He couldn't forgive himself. What's the crazy thing? Jesus could forgive him. He was already on the right path towards repentance and forgiveness. He was very sorry for what he had done. Verse 3, I'm going to read verse 3 from the New Century Version. Judas, the one who had given Jesus to his enemies, saw that they had decided to kill Jesus. Then he was very sorry for what he had done. He took the 30 silver coins back to the priest and the leaders.

And he kills himself. But he was on the right path. But he just could not deal with his own shame and his own guilt. He was unable to forgive himself. And we must come to see that if God has forgiven us, if God has totally forgiven us, we need to forgive ourselves. If the great God of the universe, our Creator, can forgive us totally, what right do we have to harbor shame and guilt and not forgive ourselves of, yes, even some very stupid things we may have done in our lives? We are totally forgiven by God upon repentance. And that's the same view we have to have towards our past and our sins and the silly and harmful things that we've done to ourselves. Again, if the great Creator God no longer holds our faults and sins against us, why should we? The Apostle Paul understood this fact because he knew that he was personally responsible for causing Christian families to be broken up and the lives of innocent people to be shattered. He, speaking to Agrippa in Acts 26, around verses 9-18, he talks about his past. And he says, when before I was called and I was called Saul and God took the blinders off me, I was personally responsible for having people arrested on the authority of the chief priest, having them put into prison, some people put to death. Paul broke up families and he destroyed Christians. But you know what? That's one of the very few places in all of his writings that he refers to his past. Because he knew he was forgiven. He does this because he's trying to explore to Agrippa a biography of his life that led up to this tumult that is causing him to be arrested. Later, as the Apostle Paul, he only occasionally speaks of this past because he knew God had forgiven him and he learned to forgive himself. Even a very heinous acts against Christians themselves. Only then, if he forgave himself, could he go on to reach the potential God had in store for him. Only when he forgave himself could he then have that rock-solid faith to go from one city to another and preach the gospel to complete strangers and hope that a few would respond so he could begin to create a church in that city. Risking beating, risking being arrested, risking stoning. He did it time after time after time because he had forgiven himself of his past. So, brethren, in conclusion today, I encourage everyone to study the subject of forgiveness before Passover this year. We are obligated to forgive others even if they don't ask for it. Even if they don't know they have created hurt. Even if they're dead. If it's a distant memory and anger that we're harboring towards someone who maybe died, we need to let it go. The ability to forgive others is freedom for the Christian disciple.

The ability to forgive others is freedom from anger and bitterness. The ability to forgive others, give ourselves, is like taking a 100 pound weight and lifting it from our minds and from our hearts and letting it all go. So, pray about it. Think about it. Study it and ask God to teach you how to forgive. To teach you how to have Christ-like forgiveness, as Jesus did on the cross. Ask God to teach you how to forgive. Look at his example and his great love, in spite of the fact that we are all weaknesses and we all struggle with our own carnality. And have a wonderful Sabbath.