Pardon of Prayer, Part 1

Forgiveness is first and foremost a decision. Dr. Tony Evans says when you make the effort to forgive others and let go of bitterness, it no longer destroys your day, destroys your life, because you made a decision to forgive.

This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. God's forgiveness is a gift, but Dr. Evans says the grudges we hold toward others can prevent us from receiving it. Let's listen in to this foundational message on forgiveness as he talked about the prayer that leads to pardon, starting in Matthew chapter 6. At this point in the Lord's Prayer, he says forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. After talking about hollowing his name, submitting to his kingdom and yielding to his will, and having gotten the provisions of God, he says now forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. So the question that we have to ask is what does the word forgive mean?

Because a false definition will lead you to a false conclusion. First of all, let me make this inextricably clear. Forgiveness is first and foremost a decision. Let me say that again. Forgiveness is first and foremost a decision. You need to hear that one more time. Forgiveness is first and foremost a decision.

Now why am I telling you that thrice? Because it is not first and foremost an emotion. Forgiveness is not first and foremost how you feel. While it does not ignore how you feel, it is not the definition of forgiveness. You decide to forgive or not forgive. Your emotions have to catch up with that decision. But if you define forgiveness as an emotion, then it will be determined by how you are emoting at a particular moment in time to determine whether you have forgiven. And since emotions are fluid and fluctuating all the time, you can be forgiving one moment, unforgiving the next moment about the same issue because it's tied to on what place on the Richter scale do your emotions happen to be at any given moment. So let's establish the fact that forgiveness at its foundation is a decision.

What kind of decision is it? It is a decision to relieve a person from an obligation or a debt incurred by a sin or an infraction against you. Forgiveness is the decision to relieve a person from an obligation or a debt incurred because of an infraction or a sin against you. When you decide to do that, regardless of where your emotions may be at a certain given time, you're operating on the biblical definition of forgiveness. In the prayer it said forgive us our debt.

Why? Because sin rings up a bill. The word debt is the word for incurring a bill. When you go to the store and buy something, you get a bill. There is a charge. A charge you are expected to pay for the bill that you incurred for the thing that you bought. When we sin against God, we incur a bill.

That bill must be paid. It either must be paid by you or somebody who pays the bill for you, but sin infractions against God incurs a bill. That's why he says forgive us our debt because you incur a debt to God when you sin. So the first part of the prayer says forgive us our debt or cancel our bill.

The bill that I have accrued because I have disobeyed you, rebelled against you, sinned against you, I want you to clear my record, to push the delete button for my failure, to let me off of the hook. Now, let me clarify. Forgiveness does not mean excusing, ignoring, justifying, or pretending that the thing didn't happen. It does not mean that I just dismiss reality and pretend what did happen didn't happen so I can feel better about what happened.

Because that's not being honest. In fact, you can't forgive unless you're willing to acknowledge the truth of what occurred. Forgiveness deals in the reality, not the dismissing of the reality, but it deals with having a debt paid for an infraction committed. Now, at this point, we need to clarify the kind of forgiveness we're talking about. There are two types of forgiveness when it comes to our relationship with God because the first part of the prayer is forgive us our debts because you're praying to God.

The first kind is legal forgiveness. The biblical word for legal forgiveness is justification. Justification means to be declared righteous.

It's a courtroom term where the judge declares you not guilty for a particular crime. When the Bible says we are justified, God in heaven declares us legally not guilty for the infractions against him. But the reason he declares us legally not guilty when we get saved, when we accept Jesus Christ, is because God credits the righteousness of Christ to our account. Jesus on the cross paid your bill. Jesus on the cross paid my bill, which allows God the Father to credit us as not guilty, not because we're not guilty, we are guilty, but because the debt that was incurred by being guilty was picked up by the death of Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God who paid the penalty for our sin. So that's legal forgiveness. That's what every person gets when they accept Jesus as your personal sacrifice, as your personal sin bearer.

You get a credit on your account, which declares you to be innocent legally. That's an eternal issue settled when you come to Christ for salvation. But that's not what he's talking about here. He's not talking about legal forgiveness because he's now dealing with your relationship with your Father, our Father who art in heaven. So you're already a child.

You're already a son or daughter of God. So he's dealing with another kind of forgiveness. He's dealing with relational forgiveness. Legal forgiveness is settled forever when you come to Christ. But relational forgiveness is conditional. Legal forgiveness is have I accepted Christ? Relational forgiveness is am I in fellowship with my Father? When we sin against God, we break fellowship.

We are legally bound, but we're not intimately connected. If you've accepted Jesus Christ, you are in permanent legal relationship. But when you sin, you've interrupted personal fellowship. That's why the Bible says in 1 John 1-9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But he says, if we, talking to Christians, if we confess our sins, we enter into fellowship. In fact, that's what the whole book of 1 John is about. It's not whether you're a Christian or not. It's whether you are in fellowship with the Father.

In fact, that whole first chapter says, and the blood of Jesus keeps on cleansing us from our sins. That's relational forgiveness. So a lot of Christians live a long time out of fellowship with God because they are on their way to heaven, but they are refusing to deal with the mess in their lives and get forgiven for God's intimate fellowship with them on earth. So God not only wants to be the Savior who takes you to heaven, but the Father who fellowships with you on earth.

So this is a fellowship term. So forgiveness means that God cancels out the thing that's breaking up the intimacy that he wants to have with you. We'll discover how to know when forgiveness has occurred when we continue our message in just a moment. First though, I want to let you know about a special package we put together as our way of saying thank you when you make a donation to the alternative broadcast. It includes all six full-length messages from the teaching series we are currently presenting called Freedom Through Forgiveness, along with a helpful companion book, 30 Days to Victory Through Forgiveness.

It's a step-by-step month-long journey toward freedom from the wrongs done to you or by you. Unforgiveness is like emotional cancer, but the principles in this message collection are the cure. And we'll send them to you as our thank you gift when you make a contribution to help us keep sharing biblical truth through this broadcast. Visit us at TonyEvans.org, make your donation online, and let us send you a copy of this special two-resource package. Or if you prefer, give us a phone call at 1-800-800-3222. Our resource center is open 24-7, so there's always someone waiting to help you.

Again, that's TonyEvans.org, or call 1-800-800-3222. Right now, let's get back to more of today's lesson. How do you know when forgiveness has occurred? If it's not a feeling, then if you look into your feelings, forgiveness may be here today, but it may not be here tomorrow because I don't feel like forgiving you. But since forgiveness is a decision, you can always measure whether forgiveness has occurred because forgiveness occurs when no retaliation is being sought.

Let me say that again. Forgiveness occurs when you're not seeking to retaliate against the person who offended you. As long as you reach back into history to bring it up today, even though it has nothing to do with what's happening today, the only reason you're bringing it up is to cause pain today, even though it happened yesterday. It means you have not forgiven yet because you're using it as a tool to bring pain because you haven't forgiven. Even though you may still feel it, it is the act of retaliation that demonstrates whether you've forgiven or not because you know whether you're retaliating or not, or using that thing from yesterday to bring about an act of judgment today. So, forgiveness is the decision that I am not going to credit this to your account. I'm not going to put a charge on your bill. I'm not going to ring up the bill and say, you still owe me.

Now, let me say one other thing by way of introduction. What about forgiving and forgetting? Many people say, well, I'll forgive, but I won't forget. Well, actually, that's okay because God doesn't forget. He wouldn't be omniscient if he forgot.

Omniscient means God knows everything. So, if he forgot something, that means he doesn't know it anymore, and that's not possible. What the Bible means by forgetting is not forgetting the information. It's forgetting the pain that was caused by the information. It's not forgetting that it happened.

It's no longer allowing what happened to have the impact now that it had when it happened. In other words, Joseph, when his brothers sinned against him, he says in Genesis 41 verse 51, he says these words. He says, God has helped me to forget what you did to me. But in chapter 50, he brings it up again.

You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. So, he never forgot what happened because he brings it up in 50. But he forgot the impact that it had on him.

So, it didn't have the same impact. So, even though you may remember when you see that person or see that situation, what happened five years ago, when you forgive, it no longer destroys your day, destroys your week, destroys your life because you made a decision to forgive. One of the reasons it stays destructive is we've kept forgiveness as an emotion and not as a decision. Once you make a decision and it's no longer an emotion, then emotions don't decide about whether forgiveness has occurred.

The decision has made that for you. So, forgiveness is the cancellation of a debt, whether or not you remember what happened or remember the details. It is the cancellation of a debt for a sin and infraction that was committed against you. Forgive us our debts and infraction incurred because of what was done to you or me or us, or as I'll say in a moment, what you've even done to yourself because we're going to do some self-forgiveness too.

Now, I want to first talk to you about two categories. First is unilateral forgiveness. Unilateral forgiveness is forgiveness that you grant even when the person hasn't asked for it. Why would you give unilateral forgiveness? Nobody said, I'm sorry, nobody's repented, and you forgive anyway.

Unilateral, you just do it on your own. Unilateral forgiveness is given, one, because the issue is so small. In other words, it didn't matter. They did wrong, but you don't care because it didn't hurt you that much and it's something you can forget. So, you don't even care if they say, I'm sorry, if they repent.

So, that's unilateral because it's so small. Another reason you would do unilateral forgiveness is the person refuses to say, I'm sorry, refuses to confess, refuses to repent. They say, I ain't going to repent. No, no, I'm kind of glad I hurt you.

I'm glad I did it. So, they're refusing. Another one is they can't repent because they've died. They hurt you when years ago, they've since passed on, so they can't make amends, even if they wanted to. They can't because they're not here, or maybe you don't even know where they are anymore.

So, even though you're still hurting for it, they moved away. They've gone somewhere, so they can't repent. If you don't do unilateral forgiveness, then you'll stay hostage to something that can never be fixed because they've died, they've gone, or they're never going to say, I'm sorry. Unilateral forgiveness is to set you free. It's to forgive what happened, even when the person is not sorry about what happened because you don't want to be held hostage by what happened. So, it sets you free.

Let me try to illustrate it this way. I'm driving down the street, and a man, I'm in my lane, and he comes over and swipes the side of my car. Just the whole side of my car, he swipes, but he keeps going.

Exactly. He kept going. He sped off and turned off a side street, and he kept going. He swiped me, and he dented the whole driver's side of my car. I was hot. Christian hot. So, I ain't cuss. But I was hot. One, because he swiped me, and two, because he didn't have enough decency to pull over.

So, I'm evangelically ticked off. I'm hot. I open my car door, and the whole side, the whole driver's side has been dented, the paint torn off, so now the car is ugly on that side. I'm driving the car to work every day. People are telling me, your car is messed up. Your car is dented. Your car is scraped, and I'm telling them, yeah, I know. I know, and I'm telling them the story.

This man pulls up and swipes me on the side and pulls off another day. I run into somebody, and I'm telling them the same story. And not only am I telling them the story, but every time I get in my car, I see the story. Because it's all, the dent is all upside of my car. I go for weeks with a dented vehicle, basking in the pain of my dentedness, being reminded every day of the infraction and the sin that was committed to me on the road, until one of my staff reminded me, you know you got insurance. I had gotten so comfortable with my dent that I learned to live with it, until I reminded that even though he was not sorry, he did not repent, I'm still covered. So I've been driving a rental car that's been provided because of the insurance that I have to take care of the dent that I had learned to live with because I was so busy being upset about what happened to me, I didn't take advantage of the solution to heal the dent in my car. Many of us are living our lives with dents on our souls.

We've been carrying that thing around for day after day, week after week, year after year, and we keep seeing this dent if he hadn't done it to me, if she hadn't done it to me, if they hadn't done it to me, if I hadn't done it to me. If we just see the dent, we tell everybody about the dent when Jesus Christ has provided you insurance. And the insurance he has provided is the decision to repent. In Acts chapter 7, Stephen is being stoned to death. In Acts chapter 7, they've come out to destroy him in verses 54 to 60, and they're not repenting, they're not sorry, they're stoning them to death. And in the middle of being stoned to death, he says, Father, forgive them. Don't hold this to their account, but they are stoning you. But I'm not going to let their stones remove God's work in my life.

I'm not going to let their stones. And what did he see? He saw Jesus standing on the right-hand side of the Father. Many of us don't see Jesus because we keep staring at the dent. We don't see the insurance policy of God's grace at work because we won't do unilateral forgiveness. That's where you forgive when there is no apology.

They aren't sorry, but you decide, I'm going to not credit this to your account, even though you're guilty. Once you unilaterally forgive, then vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will repay. Forgiveness, canceling of debt, it's legal when you accept Christ. It's relational when you confess your sin to Jesus Christ and repent of your wrong direction and get back in fellowship with God.

Now, why does this matter? Let's reread the verse. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. A refusal to forgive the bill that somebody owes you will cause God not to forgive the bill you owe Him.

And the bill you owe Him is probably bigger than the bill somebody else owes you. He says, now, don't come to me and ask me to cancel for you what you are unwilling to cancel for somebody else. Dr. Tony Evans from a classic sermon he presented on forgiveness. Now, before we go, don't forget that the full-length version of this message, called The Pardon of Prayer, is available on CD or digital download. Just visit tonyevans.org to get the details. Better yet, when you request the Freedom Through Forgiveness audio collection and make a contribution to the alternative broadcast, we'll send the entire six-lesson series to you along with the companion book I mentioned earlier, 30 Days to Victory Through Forgiveness. Visit tonyevans.org to get the details and make the arrangements, or call us day or night at 1-800-800-3222. That's 1-800-800-3222 or online at tonyevans.org. Well, tomorrow we'll hear more about the second kind of forgiveness and the different roles they play in helping us grow closer to God. Be sure to join us.