Ten Reason to Forgive

Praise God for His mercy. In your Bible, if you would join me in the book of Ephesians, chapter number 4, Ephesians 4. The early service gasped when I said the book of Ephesians.

I said, preacher, you've been saying Matthew for three years. We didn't even know there was another book in the Bible. Ephesians 4, look at me. Ephesians is one of my favorite books. I'm actually working on going through and memorizing this book right now.

It's such a wonderful, wonderful treasure trove. The first three chapters deal with the doctrines of our faith, and then the last three chapters actually transition into the duty of our faith. So you have to lay down truth before you know how to live it out. Chapter 4 lets us know between verse 22 and 24 that there are things that you have to put off. You have to put off the old man, renew your mind, and then put on the new man. In other words, before you can start doing what's right, you've got to stop doing what's wrong.

There is a transition there. And then he begins to lay out some of the things we put off. Verse 25, put off lying, speak the truth. Verse 26 and 27, put off anger. Verse 28, don't steal, but rather work faithfully.

And he continues to walk through that. And then he gets into the most, one of the most essential parts of our Christian life is in the area of human relationships where unforgiveness can rob the joy of our life, fill us with sin and bitterness. And he says in verse 31, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. If you'd read verse 32 with me, and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. And father, that is our desire that your word would be fulfilled in your servants. God, we pray that the word of God would create in us a clean heart, that you would wash us with water by the word, that you would sanctify and cleanse us with the word of truth.

Your word is truth. We pray today that if there is unforgiveness found in our hearts, that we would humble ourselves before you. We would repent of the sin of unforgiveness, and that we would follow in obedience with you as Lord of our life and not bitterness. Lord, commit our hearts to you now, and we pray that you would be glorified. And if anyone today doesn't know Christ as their Savior today, may it be the day of their salvation.

We ask it in Jesus' name. And God's people said, man, you may be seated this morning. Well, today, I want to finish the message that I didn't preach last Sunday because I preached away at another church, and I planned on preaching this last Sunday, and I said I would the Sunday before, and at the end of service, all my staff was like, preacher, you're not going to be here next Sunday.

I was like, ah, I just lied to the whole church. But here I am to ask you to forgive me as I preach on forgiveness. So we will look at this. I do believe that forgiveness is such a heavy, heavy thing. It is something that we all deal with, and it's not something that we can take lightly. I understand that some of you have been offended in life, hurt in life, sinned against in life in ways that are sometimes even beyond human expression. There are some wrongs that people go through, some hurts. There's different levels.

I get that. And so I just want you to know that forgiveness is the greatest remedy for our hearts. We must understand this great truth because not only does it set us free from that bondage of the past hurt, but it also sets us free to serve God with joy and freedom. And so Jesus in Matthew 18 had been teaching on when you get sinned against to go and seek reconciliation with your brothers in Christ. And so it brought Peter to the question of saying, Lord, how often do I forgive my brother?

Seven times. And the Jewish common thought in that day was you forgive someone up to three times. So Peter doubles it and adds one, and Jesus doesn't say forgive them just a max of seven times.

He said, but 70 times seven, right? So it's really the idea that you just continually pour out forgiveness because forgiveness has been poured into you. And then it launches into a parable of forgiveness about a king who had a servant who owed him an insurmountable amount of debt, which racks up to about 150,000 years of working to pay it off would be the equation of the day.

10,000 talents, that's what that would become in that common day. And so the man falls down before the king saying, forgive me, I will pay you this debt back. But the king is more generous than even what the man asks. Instead of giving him time to repay him, he says, I'll just forgive you the debt. He forgives him, he wipes the records clean. Well, the man goes out and he has somebody who owes him about three to four months worth of income. And instead of being gracious to him like you would suppose somebody who's been forgiven so much, he takes the man by the throat, chokes him and says, pay me what you owe me now.

The man in similar fashion falls down and says, have patience with me and I will pay you all. But the Bible says the man would not, but he cast the other individual who owed him into jail until he paid him everything that was due him. And Jesus likens that unto how sinful it is for us who've been forgiven such an insurmountable amount of sin to go out and hold offenses against other people. In fact, Jesus said that man was a wicked servant and he said the king calls the man to him and puts a greater judgment on the man for his unforgiveness than he would have given him for the amount of 10,000 talents that he owed him.

And he forced him into a prison where he would be tortured until he paid everything back. And Jesus said, so will it be unto you if you from your hearts do not pay or if you do not forgive those who have sinned against you? Jesus makes it a pretty massive deal on forgiveness. It's such a big deal that Jesus said at the end of the Lord's prayer, the only element that he repeats in verse 14 and 15 of Matthew six, he says to make sure you forgive one another or else you will not be forgiven. So just understand forgiveness is a massive issue with God. It is like a top shelf sin that you should never commit. Unforgiveness is one of the worst sins in the eyes of God. He looks at it really biblically worse than murder, worse than about anything else. God is extremely serious about unforgiveness and we need to know that, right? Because we like to make our sins a little less black. Like, well, you know, it's kind of a white unforgiveness. It's kind of a gray, you know, people are like, well, I, you know, I was talking to somebody this week. I said, you ever told a lie before I was sharing the gospel with them?

They're like, well, not really a bad lie. You know, we try to, we try to sanctify our sins, don't we? So now the only way for you and I to sustain relationships in life is to live a life that is practicing forgiveness constantly.

And there's two reasons for that. First of all, the inevitability of offenses. Jesus said in Matthew 18, verse seven, he says, offenses will come. Things will happen. People will sin against you. You will be sinned against. I mean, just ask yourself, how long do you think it'll take this week until somebody offends you or you offends them? Offends them is not a good way to phrase that. You say, well, I got offended on the way in.

Pretty sure my husband was, you know, my wife and, and so they can happen very quickly. And I understand that. And so we must deal with this reality that is a battle. Now, also, not only is it, is offense, our offense is inevitable, but unforgiveness is so destructive.

Because we get offended, we have to deal with that. And if we don't cast forgiveness over those things, as love covers a multitude of sins, we're going to start building up unforgiveness and bitterness. And so many things come out of that. Ask yourself, what happens to a close friendship when they become unforgiving toward each other? It begins to split apart, doesn't it? They get distant, they get cold to each other, or they lash out and say some very hurtful things.

Anybody ever lost a friend because of the unwillingness to forgive? And how does it deal with in family relationships? You ever been to a family get together and, and you know that there's a couple of family members that are totally at odds with each other, and the brokenness that, and it creates hostility among the whole family, doesn't it? It causes an uneasiness. And that's what unforgiveness does. It poisons people. Unforgiveness, like one man said, is like a person drinking poison and they think it's going to kill the other person. It's self-inflicted agony. It makes you feel as bad now as you did back then because you won't release it.

You hold it like a poison. It is absolutely destructive. It robs family harmony, and it destroys people from within. Listen to what Hebrews 12 verse 15 says. It says, looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. It's interesting that the Bible likens bitterness like a root that gets down into the heart of a person, and it produces things that it says will defile you.

It will defile you. And I believe some of the fruits that come from the poisonous root of bitterness are found here in Ephesians 4 verse 31. Notice what verse 31 says.

There's five fruits that seem to come out of this. The first, he says, let all bitterness, and then the next thing, I believe, that comes from bitterness is wrath. Now, wrath has to do with a person's rage. This is deep-seated anger. Bitterness leads to that internal wrath of a person. The second word, it says, let all bitterness, wrath, and anger. Anger is more hostility.

It is also internal. This word anger in the Greek is also translated in other places, such as in Romans chapter 12 verse 18 as vengeance. When people get wrathful, they want to have vengeance on the person who wronged them. They want to settle the score. They want to even the odds. They will say things like, you know what, I'm going to get back at them, and it's going to be a whole lot worse than they expected.

I'm going to settle this score. This isn't going to just go the way they thought, and they want to right the wrong. They want the other person to pay the price. Then the third word here is clamor. Clamor. This is verbal and physical expressions given to wrath and anger when it bubbles out.

It is the outcry. This is the shouting, the yelling, the throwing things, the slamming doors, the physical expression that is given to wrath and anger. And all of this is coming from the root, the poisonous root of bitterness. And the next word there is evil speaking.

It actually comes from the Greek word blasphemia, where we get our English word blasphemy from. It means to slander somebody, to mar their name. One thing that bitterness does is it will cause someone to slander other people.

I see this sometimes on social media platforms where people will begin to say things about someone and really run them down, and then they play the victim card. Can I give some advice from a pastoral platform here? Do not encourage people when they are publicly slandering their spouse or slandering someone in their life.

Oh, I'm so sorry you're going through that. That's not the right answer. The right answer is what the Bible says, you go to them alone. You go to your husband alone. Well, if they want your spouse alone, or you take one or two spiritual people with you as Jesus taught.

Very specific. And then you bring other leadership from the church and seek to reconcile and work through that situation. You don't go on a public platform where there's a bunch of unbelievers and deal with things that way.

Does that make sense? That's not helpful. They need rebuke.

They don't need coddled. I'll preach this way the rest of my life, so whether you like it or not, that is a sin to do. It is sinful. It is always wrong to go on a public platform because there's not just one side of the story, there's three. There's their side, the other person's side, and then there's the actual truth. Does that make sense?

Okay, I don't need to hit that horse anymore. Now, what does Jesus say our speech should be toward people that offend us? Matthew 5, right?

You know what he says? Matthew 5, 43. You heard that it had been said to love your neighbor and hate your enemies.

People are like, yeah, I like that. You know Jesus in the Bible never taught that? That was what was coming out of Judaism's religious leaders. That came out of like the Mishnah. That came out of the oral law. That came out of things that were being taught down by tradition.

Jesus never taught that. He says, you've heard people say that, but I say to you, love your enemies. Bless them. You know what the word bless?

It comes from the Greek word olegia, where we get the word eulogy from. Eulogy is like speaking well of someone. And so it's saying, bless them, speak well of them. Bless your enemies, speak well of them that curse you. And then he says, do good to them that hate you. And then he says, pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. So far from like going out and slamming somebody says, you need to love them, do good to them and pray for them. And then, and then the fifth, the fifth fruit that comes out of this is bitterness, put off wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking, be put away from you with all kakaios.

It's a Greek word where we get the general term for evil. It's malice. It is, it will stir up all forms of evil and malice within the person. So when bitterness gets a hold of a heart, it spews all of that out.

So offenses are inevitable. Unforgiveness is absolutely destructive. Therefore, unless the believer lives a life of constant forgiveness, they will get, they will get overwhelmed by these things. And everyone in here is touched by this. Every one of us deal with this on a weekly basis because people will sin against you at some level.

Just drive down 35. You're tempting me to sin, right? Now, what does it mean to forgive? Forgive is amphia in the Greek.

It means, it means it was the same word used when they would take a stone and throw it. It means like what they've done against you, cast it away, rid yourself of it. This is the idea of Psalm 103 12, as far as the East is from the West so far hath he removed our transgressions.

Anybody thankful for that? Jeremiah 31 34, I will forgive their iniquity. God says, I will remember their sin no more.

I think about Isaiah 38 17. He says, you have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption. You have cast all my sins behind your back. That's the kind of God that we have who treats us this way. And so to forgive is to cast their sin away. In the Bible, it also speaks about canceling a debt. So that's why in the Bible, you'll see the references to sins as being debts, literally like debts. When we sin, we have a debt against God that we owe. And the problem is we have no currency to pay it. Good works can't pay for that. And so that's why the Bible says the wages of sin is death. We have earned wages. We have built up a spiritual debt and we need mercy.

We need grace. And so to forgive somebody is to say, you know what? You have a debt of moral debt against me. You have wronged me.

You have done something. You owe me, but I canceled the debt. I forgive you and you owe me nothing.

That's what forgiveness is saying. You don't owe me anything anymore. I've released it.

I've cast it away. You owe me nothing. Today I want to look at 10 reasons why we need to forgive, why we need to forgive. It was 12 reasons a couple of weeks ago, and I know none of you believe that's possible. And so I harnessed it down to 10, which means I combined a couple of them for your sake.

So let me give you some things here. First of all, we must forgive because forgiveness honors Christ as Lord. If you want to be saved, you must confess Jesus as Lord. Romans 10, 9, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, or that Jesus is Lord, you shall be saved. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Jesus Christ is Lord, meaning he is God and you confess he is the Lord of your heart.

He is to sit on the throne of your heart. Salvation is a confession that always leads to true obedience. That's why Jesus said in Matthew 7 21, not everyone who says unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven. In other words, not everyone who calls on the Lord shall be saved.

Easy believe-ism is not true. You can call on him and be saved and you can call on him and not be saved. Not everyone who says, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father, which is in heaven. What that says is it's not that works save you, but that a true faith works. It's not faith plus works, it's faith that works.

That's James 2, isn't it? You say you have faith without works, I'll show you my faith by my work. He's not teaching faith plus works equals salvation.

He says faith that works is what true salvation is. Now, what happens is this, when we hold on to bitterness and unforgiveness, we are allowing that unforgiveness, that offense to be on the throne of our heart instead of Jesus to sit on the throne of our heart. I would ask the question, can Jesus sit on the throne of our heart while we hold on to resentment and bitterness?

He can't reign there. We are usurping the throne of our heart and ultimately unforgiveness is an act of idolatry because we're putting the thing that we don't like on the throne of our heart instead of God and just look at what it does to us. It ages us, it ruins us, it gives us stress and anxiety and anger and bitterness and resentment and malice and everything else. When you forgive, when you and I forgive someone, we are saying Jesus is Lord, not you, not the situation, not the offense. Jesus, you sit on the throne of my heart. I honor Christ as Lord.

So who is the Lord of your life, friend? Secondly, forgiveness keeps us from the sin of unforgiveness. You know, sin, according to 1 John 3, 4, is not obeying the word of God. It's disobedience.

It is lawlessness. It is violating God's word. And because God commands us to forgive, if we don't follow that, that becomes a sin. When people offend us and sin against us, the Bible tells us to go to them. Matthew 18, 15, moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against you, if they sin against you, go and tell him your fault between thee and him alone. If he hears you, you've gained your brother. Now, it doesn't say you ignore their sin, you don't downplay it.

You go to them, not in anger, but in love and in humility and seek reconciliation. Let me take just a moment to remind us that not every offense is a sin. Sometimes we can get offended because we are being too sensitive. We have wrong expectations and we focus too much on ourselves. I would say that constantly offended people are usually not being constantly sinned against. They are usually sinning against others by constantly focusing on themselves. I want to say this, what happens is they put the expectation on someone else instead of putting it on themselves.

Let me show you how this looks. Years ago, probably a dozen years ago, I remember being over here on the other side over there where the Youth Center was our first sanctuary when we were early on in the church. I had a couple who, they said, you know, people are just not being friendly to us. You know, when you ask people to shake hands, they said, nobody shakes our hand. My jaw hit the floor. I was like, what? I was like, I can't even get these people to stop shaking hands.

I like going to do it at the end because I can't break them up. They're too friendly. I'm like, can we get on with the service now? Stop shaking hands. You know, let's get going. But it was like that. And I was thinking, okay.

And so the next time we went to shake hands, I was like, I didn't shake anybody's hand. I'm like looking for them guys. I'm like, where are they at? I want to see what's happening to them.

And I'm not exaggerating this. They literally were standing at the very back of the sanctuary while I said, hey, everybody go around and shake somebody's hand, make them feel welcome. They stood in the spot back of the sanctuary in the corner with their head down like this, like holding their hands like this. I could see people come up and like, and like, but they couldn't even catch their eye or like they just were like distant. Do you realize they were putting an expectation on others that they should be putting on themselves? If no one shakes my hand, that means I didn't shake anybody else's hand. Does this make sense? And then you feel like you're being sinned against?

Really? Such people don't need coddled. They need rebuked. So I would graciously do that. I need to talk to you. I saw, I saw what went on over there. I said, can you put your hand out for a minute? So I gave them a challenge. They're like, well, you know, we're just kind of introverts.

And I said, well, let me ask you this. Every service why don't you just go and try to meet one person and just get their name? Because God has never called us to be isolated. You know, being isolated, being an introvert. I understand that.

I get that. But, but is it not a little bit selfish when we put ourselves on such a pedestal that we minister to ourself, to the place where we forsake loving and caring for other people? Is that being a little selfish?

Yeah. People say, well, I can't share the gospel cause I'm just an introvert. No, you're being too selfish because if you cared for their soul more than your comfort, you would tell them about Jesus. Does this make sense? Listen, I just cut it straight. If you want like a political view on things and kind of graciously, this is not the church for you.

It's just going to be told you, right? We, we must get over ourself. God has called us to love people, which means, you know what the Bible says, love others as we love who? That's, that's, that's where we, the problem is we have too much self love. And people will tell me sometimes, you know, I just need to love myself more. I'm like, no, you don't.

It's not true. The problem is we love ourself too much. And that's why we, listen, I feed myself, clothe myself, bathe myself, every, anything I need, I pretty much take care of myself. And everybody does that for themselves too. And we usually focus on ourself to the point where we put other, and now sometimes we need to receive God's forgiveness and God's love. That's what we're missing out on, but it's not self love that we need.

That's, Jesus said, that's the default position. So not every offense is a sin against us. Sometimes we're just being selfish with wrong expectations, but sometimes we are sinned against. And when that happens, we need to forgive others is what verse 32 says, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.

Now I want to point another verse out. Colossians 3, 13 says this, it says forbearing one another, forbearing one another and forgiving one another. The word forbearing means this, that you, you, you bear up with their sins and shortcomings. You keep loving them, even when it's difficult, you keep doing them good.

This is what it would sound like. And then you go back and you love them again and you treat them good again. And then they do something and you're like, and then you, that, I mean, that's literally what it feels like.

Serving Jesus isn't easy. You forbear them. They're going to get annoying sometimes. They're going to get frustrating.

They're going to stretch your patience. And God's like, yeah. Do you think we ever stress God out or frustrate him?

I mean, think about it. We're like, but God, you don't know what they've done to me. And he's like, really?

You want to have that conversation? As though, as though God should only surround us with like the perfect people. Listen, we deal with things in life and sometimes it's not easy, but in those chances we get to treat them like Jesus has treated us.

Right? And so forbear with them. And then it says, forgiving one another. If any men have a quarrel with any, even as Christ forgave you, also do ye. So just forgive. And then we must forgive thirdly because Christians are the greatest recipients of forgiveness. We looked at this a couple of weeks ago, but the man was forgiven 150,000 years of sin debt and he was forgiven. Anytime, I will guarantee you this, anytime that we struggle to forgive, it's because we're making their sin more than our sin against God.

Every single time. We elevate, we, we use magnifying glasses and there's two types of magnifications that you can do. One kind of magnifications can make things bigger and smaller. So, so we, we, we can take, uh, in other words, we'll take their sin and elevate it, I should say, with a magnifying glass, but ours, we try to minimize those things.

We have two different kinds of lenses. We, we look at ours, ah, you know, I didn't really do anything, but boy, what they did, you know, Psalms one, one 30 verse three says, if thou you Lord or Yahweh should mark iniquity or keep track of sins. Oh Lord, who shall stand? Uh, Lamentations three 22, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassion is failing. You know, the reason that you woke up today is because God's merciful.

It's because his compassion's don't fail. Number four, we must forgive because whoever has offended us has forget, offended God more. If God who is the most holy can forgive someone of their sin, cannot we who are the least holy forgive people? If God who is the most offended can forgive, can't we who are the least offended forgive? You know, to not be willing to forgive a brother or sister in Christ is to not be willing to give them what God has given them. It is to, it is in essence saying this, to not forgive a fellow believers to say, Jesus, you died on the cross to cover their sins and that may be enough for you, but it's not enough for me.

I need payment from them. You may be willing to forgive them, but Oh, I don't have such a standard. I, they owe me friends. I think that is a, uh, that just lets us know how evil, evil unforgiveness is. Number five, forgiveness is the most Christlike act a Christian could do. There is nothing you will ever do in your life that looks more like Jesus than forgiveness ever, ever in your life. Look at, look at Ephesians four, be kind tender heart of forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake had forgiven you.

You understand the Bible didn't originally have chapters and verses, so it flows right into chapter five. Be therefore mimeitize of God as Agapetos children. I know that's, those aren't English words, but the word mimeitize is translated here as followers. It could probably better be translated as mimics. That's what mimeitize mimics or imitators.

It's more than just following him. It's literally mimicking him. That's what the Greek word means. You imitate what it means is just everything that's true of God. Let it be true in your life. Have the mind of Christ put on Christ. Walk as he walked, talk as he talked. You put on the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't make provision for the flesh. Romans 13, 14. So, so put on the Lord Jesus Christ or the followers of God. And then he says as Agapetos children.

That is a very fascinating statement. It's translated as dear children. It's the same word used when Jesus was baptized in God. The father said, this is my Agapetos son in whom I am well pleased.

Do you understand? It literally means my dearly beloved son, my well beloved son. It's more than I think just the word dear children.

It's well beloved dear children. It's a very strong reality. God literally speaks about you like he does Jesus.

Warren Wiersbe writes about that in his commentary. Very powerful truth. He would be so gracious to us should we not be gracious to others. It is the most Christ-like thing. If you want to mimic God, do what he says there in verse 32 and forgive even as God it says. Forgive even as God for Christ sake hath forgiven you. You know, on the cross, Jesus said, father, forgive them. They know not what they do, right? Fast forward to act seven, the first martyr of the church, Stephen.

And when he's being stoned to death, what does he say? He says, Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge. Don't keep that debt against them.

Don't charge them for this. Isn't that amazing? Where did he get that from? He got that from Christ. And the height of his reflecting Christ was forgiving the people that were killing him. You know, a lot of the early church martyrs, that was what they would say at the end right before they died. Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge while they're being burned at the stake.

Unbelievable friends. I don't know what you've had happen to you in life, but I can tell you most of our offenses don't match those kinds of offenses. It's such an elevated virtue that the Bible speaks of it as the glory of a man to forgive. Proverbs 19, 11 says this, the discretion of a man, which means the good sense of a man defers his anger, which means it causes him to be slow of anger. And it is his glory. What is man's glory, God? It is his glory to pass over a transgression, to overlook the offense, to be willing to forgive it. God says that is the crowning glory of a man. So if you want to know what God says is the highest virtue, the highest character as a Christian you can have, it's when you forgive.

You don't get higher than that. You want to be like Christ, forgiveness is the greatest place. Number six, we must forgive because forgiveness allows God to work. If it's the most Christ-like thing we can do, wouldn't it also entail that it would be the most effective thing to minister in? Like nowhere could God work more than when we're most like Jesus. So if we have a church filled with forgiving people, we have a church filled with Christ-like people, and we have a church filled with God moving among the people. God is on display through forgiveness. Came across the true story of an incredible story of forgiveness by a pastor named Walter Everett.

It was so powerful it caught the eyes of news stations who followed through and posted the story. One day, Walter Everett got a phone call from the officers who said, we're sorry to inform you that your son Scott has been murdered last night. Pastor Walter said that the anger in his heart just immediately boiled up in a rage against his son's murderer whose name was Mike. He said it got even worse when there was a plea bargain resulting in a reduced sentence for the attacker. He said my rage was affecting my entire life.

How am I going to let go of this anger? I wondered. The answer came the first time he said I saw Mike almost a year after Scott's death. He said Mike stood in the court to his sentencing and said he was truly sorry for what he had done. He said at three and a half weeks later on the first anniversary of my son's death, I wrote to Mike.

I told him about my anger and asked him pointed questions. And then I wrote, having said all that, I want to thank you for what you said in court. And as hard as these words are for me to write, he says, I forgive you. And then he said, I wrote of God's love in Christ and invited Mike to write to me if he wished. He said three weeks later the letter arrived. He said he had never read anything like that.

He could not believe it. He said no one ever said to me, I forgive you. He said that night I knelt beside my bed and prayed and received Jesus Christ as my Savior. Additional correspondence continued between Pastor Walter and Mike. Later Pastor Walter actually spoke on Mike's behalf before a parole board that was able to give him an early release.

Three years later, Pastor Walter was the officiating minister at Mike's wedding. That's the power of forgiveness. Mike became a Christian because forgiveness was applied. And you're here today as Christians because forgiveness was applied to us by the murderers of Jesus Christ.

You understand, we are the Mike in the story. Jesus died because of us. We killed the Son of God with our sin. And we who have offended God so infinitely have been the recipients of unbelievable grace. Unforgiveness hinders the work of God.

And if you allow it to harbor, it will hinder the work of God. But forgiveness can do such amazing things. I had a chance recently to go visit someone that was in a juvenile detention center and young man had faced some difficult things in his life. And he was sharing with me that he had been estranged from his dad for a long time. Many years his dad was not a good man, treated him poorly. And he said, you know, he said, my father died right before I came in here.

And he said, I never got to go see him. And with tears in his eyes rolling down his face, he said, I just wonder if he would still be alive if he knew that I would forgive him. And the boy was carrying such weight. It was just so weighty on him. And so I shared the truth of Christ and went through the gospel with him and said, would you like to give your life to Jesus?

And he said, absolutely. And he got down and prayed for several minutes, pleading with God to cleanse him and forgive him. And you could just see the weight of God's grace just releasing that bitterness from his heart and that unforgiveness and all of those things and setting him free. Forgiveness is a powerful thing. But friends, when we live with unforgiveness, it leads to a lot of regret. I've seen people who, I had a situation years ago where some siblings had got into a big fight arguing and they were at odds for a while. And the one sibling ended up having a tragic accident and dying like just a few days later. And I can't tell you the amount of pain that was in the other sibling. Whatever offense was there meant nothing.

Nothing. Because there's no way to go back and reconcile that. I've done a lot of funerals and I've had people cuss each other out inside the funeral in our church. We've had to break people up before.

I'm like, preacher's going to have to step in here. It can get rough. I'm telling you, some of you probably have been around some of those situations where that's how hostile unforgiveness makes people. It rips family harmony up.

It destroys people. It is a horrifying sin and it must be rooted out. We must be forgiving people. Number seven, unforgiveness makes us unfit to worship God. Unforgiveness is to approach God with sin in our hearts, rebelling against Him, thinking He's going to accept our worship. You ever wonder why you feel distant from God or cold and empty and just have anger and frustration and a sense of coldness spiritually? I can tell you when the ice of bitterness is in your heart, you can't have the warmth of Christ and it makes us unfit to worship.

Matthew 5, verse 23 and 24, Jesus says, if thou therefore bring thy gift to an altar and there remember that thy brother hath ought against you, if they have something against you, leave your gift before the altar, go and be reconciled to them first. It doesn't mean you can always reconcile the situation, but you need to at least make the attempt. You need to at least forgive. You need to at least seek to right that wrong.

Don't come and think you can be right with me and wrong with your brother. I remember one time, years ago, I don't even remember the exact situation, but I was at odds or frustrated with my wife over something and I came here that morning to preach and was working on a sermon and I was under such conviction I said, I will not preach until I go home and get this right with my wife. And I went home and I apologized, whatever was going on, because I can tell you this, I will not preach from this pulpit as a hypocrite. I will not do it.

I would rather resign and step down. And ministry has a sanctifying effect on my life. I can't be at odds. I'm so thankful I have such a wonderful wife so I don't have to deal with that on a regular basis, man.

She is so good to me. But I can tell you friends, whether a pastor or anybody, we must feel in that same weight. How can I approach God's presence holding such a grudge with my loved one?

Does that make sense? The Bible says don't say you can love God when you hate your own brother. And how much more with our own spouse. We have to get that thing right. You say, well, you don't know what they've done.

Just stop looking at their crime and start looking at our own. Remember, you're the guy that owns 150,000 years of debt, right? Let it break you. Let it humble you. Number eight, offenses you and I face in life can be trials to grow us. Recognize that the situation or person may be a tool God is using to build spiritual character. First Peter five verse 10 says, but the God of all grace with called us into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while make you perfect.

That could also be translated as mature. He will mature you. He will perfect your life, establish, strengthen and settle you. Listen, be little concerned about your personal injuries and much concerned about your personal holiness. Over the years, I have had people tell me about the offenses so often that they have faced and I try to help them through those things.

And we walk through the word, we walk through biblical wisdom and principles. But something I say to people often when they're in a situation is this, is, okay, you're in this situation and this person's wronged you or this situation happened and it's very hurtful and frustrating. And then I asked this question, how would it change if you knew God wanted that to happen? How would it change if you knew God wanted you to be in that situation? I want you to ask yourself that.

What are you going through right now that's really weighing you down? What if God wanted that person in your life, that situation to come into your life? You say, well, I just can't see how God would want somebody to treat me like that or do that.

Oh, really? You ever read about Paul? 2 Corinthians, right?

When he says, God gave Paul a messenger of Satan to buffet Paul. Why would you do that, God? And Lord, I need this gone. Get rid of this. I can't minister right with this.

This is wearing me down. This messenger of Satan's buffeting me. And you know what Jesus' response was? Paul, I don't want to take it from you.

I want it there. So what happens when something you see as being terrible in your life is something God actually wants in your life. That's what it means to come in contact with sovereignty. What happens when your freedom and autonomy confronts ultimate freedom and autonomy that wants something in your life that's better for you than if you didn't have it. I don't need to be healthy. I need to be holy. I don't need to have an easy life. I need to have a righteous life before God.

I need the life God's called me to, not the life I supposedly think I deserve and God owes me. So Jesus says, my grace is sufficient for you, Paul. My strength is made perfect not when you're strong. It's actually made perfect when you're weak. Do you realize we need to be weakened? Let me ask you, what would in your life be necessary to weaken you?

What's going to weaken you? Because for Paul, better that a messenger of Satan buffet you, then pride get a hold of you. Pride will destroy your life more than a messenger of Satan. So Paul's like, oh, now I get it. So you know what he did? He says, well then I will rather glory in my infirmity that the power of God will rest upon me. He's like, I take pleasure in infirmities.

I mean, bring it on baby. And so what happened was nothing in his life changed. Why? Because God wanted it there. Nothing in his life changed except his perspective. He didn't need a change of situation and circumstance. He just needed to change his perspective.

And once he saw his situation through the lens of heaven and not earth, he's like, I'm good. You understand how powerful expectations are? You get your expectations set on, I cannot be happy. I cannot be content and satisfied until this person and situations out of my life.

Oh really? That puts you on the throne friend. That makes you say, God, I deserve better than what you've given to me. In fact, I deserve so much better that I will sit here and be discontent until you give me what is owed me. We need to come along and say, ah, for God, I'm not God here.

You are Lord. In one day, friends in heaven, all the question marks will turn into exclamation points. When we see what God has done and we'll say, dear God, I did not know how far I would have strayed if you didn't bring that to me.

I would have destroyed myself. I would have destroyed my life if you didn't keep me humble. I just wonder how much pain God has allowed graciously to come into our life so the greater pain wouldn't come. Do you understand how merciful God is? We don't get it now, but I promise you we will get it then. So today we can step back and say, Lord, I don't understand all these things, but praise God, I can live a Proverbs three, five and six life.

I can trust you with all of my heart. I don't have to lean on my own understanding on all my ways, acknowledge you and you'll direct my path. And I want you to ask yourself this question, how would it change your outlook today knowing that that situation that you've been chafing against was something God wanted in your life?

That is what ultimate reality is, is to live under God's sovereign plan. Two other things. Ninth, the price of unforgiveness. We must forgive because the price of unforgiveness is greater than the price of forgiveness.

You know what forgiving people costs you? It makes you obedient to Christ. You reflect Christ in your life.

You live with a crowning glory of forgiveness in your life. It sets you free from bitterness. It allows God to work. It makes you fit to worship. It causes you to be humble and grow spiritually.

And you have a Christ-like testimony. That doesn't sound like a price. It sounds like payment, doesn't it? What is the price to not forgive? It is to poison yourself. It is to poison people around you. It is to be filled and controlled by hate and anger and frustration and bitterness instead of by God. Unforgiveness keeps us a prisoner to the hurt and pain of the past. We choose to love hate and cultivate it throughout life. It's an open wound that we pick at. We become an emotional slave to the person we don't forgive.

It's a horrible thing. John R.W. Stott in his book Confess Your Sins quotes the head of a large British mental home. He says, I could dismiss half my patients tomorrow if they could be assured of forgiveness. I remember Dale Carnegie, he said, he was one day at a national park and he saw a bear eating a dead animal and all the other animals were around it like, you know, leave us a scrap, you know, but they would not dare approach a bear while it's eating its meal.

Nothing would get close to it. And then out of the woods came a little skunk just trotting along, walked right up next to the bear and starts eating right there. He's like, I can't believe this little, the boldness. Why didn't the bear do anything? And he said he thought on it for a while and he realized, you know, the bear could wipe that skunk out, but it just wasn't worth it. The price wasn't worth it to get even with him. And I just wonder how many times in life we do things and we don't realize the price we're paying. Friends, it's not worth unforgiveness. The price you pay for unforgiveness. It is a price higher than what we realize.

And let me give you a 10th and final reason. Forgiveness allows our lives to be defined by a sovereign God and not a sinful offense. When we will not forgive, we allow the offense to have control over our life instead of letting God have control. Outside of Jesus Christ, there is no picture of forgiveness I think that's more powerful in the Bible than that of Joseph. The story of Joseph is a tremendous story.

I preached for a couple years through Genesis, preached 17 sermons on his life, the life of Joseph. And I won't go through all of those things, but Joseph was an 11th son of Jacob, very promising young man, was his favorite son, got the coat of many colors, one day went out to search for his brothers. They hated him. They ended up conspiring to kill him, but Reuben saved his brother's life and said don't kill him. They threw him in a pit.

They saw some Ishmaelites come by. They ended up selling him to the Ishmaelites, which is kind of interesting because Ishmael was basically uncle of the family, so it was his descendants. He goes into Egypt. He ends up spending, fast forward, around 15 years imprisoned with injustices happening in his life.

From 17 to around early 30s, his life was confined, totally defined by injustices. And then there was a famine that hit, which brought his family to Egypt seeking food because he had been now raised up as the right-hand man to Pharaoh through circumstance. And he sees his brothers come. Thank God for the famines that bring families together. But his family comes, and he recognizes them, but they don't recognize him, and then he makes himself known to them through a series of events.

I don't have time to go through them all. But I want to read for you what he says to them. In Genesis 45, it says, And Joseph said to his brethren, I am Joseph, doth my father yet live? And his brothers could not answer him, for they were troubled at his presence.

They thought he would kill them. And Joseph saith unto his brothers, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near, and he said, I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. Now, therefore, be not grieved nor angry with yourself that you sold me hither.

Isn't that something? I don't want you to be angry with yourself. And then notice the next statement, For God did send me before you to preserve life. He goes on and talks about the famine in verse six. Verse seven, he says, And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth. Verse eight, So now it is not you that sent me, but God.

And the reason Joseph could live with the freedom of forgiveness is because he realized he lived under the sovereign hand of God. God's in control of our life. He writes the script.

Will we be faithful in that life? You don't don't give the pen over to someone you don't even like to now have control over you to control your thoughts, your emotions, your life. God let God be the author.

He's the director. Don't be embittered with people be worshipful toward God. I need to answer a couple quick questions because people ask these things through the years and just to clarify some thoughts here as we wrap up. Doesn't forgiveness remove consequence? I thought God was just and if we forgive them, doesn't that just let them off the hook? I understand that question. Let me answer that very briefly. When you forgive someone, you're letting them off of your hook and you're putting them on God's hook.

You're saying, You know what? I turn all judgment over to God. It's between God and you, but I release you of the debt to me.

You can't handle the bench as a person. We can't. We give that over to God. So then the Bible says vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. You think your vengeance is more severe than God's? Just read the Bible. Read Revelation 19. God is a holy God and he will bring vengeance on sin. But notice Romans chapter 12 verse 20 says, Therefore, since God's going to be the avenger, it says, If your enemy hunger, feed him.

If he thirst, give him the drink and care for them. Another question people sometimes ask is if I forgive them, does that mean I need to be their friend? I've had people say, You know, I had somebody that was an employee. There was a terrible employee.

They did some unlawful things. You know, they just and so I forgive them. But do I need to like keep them on my job and do I need to stay?

You know, how's that work? And I said, No, I would fire them. Forgive them and fire them.

Absolutely. They did things. They were not a just employee. Forgiveness doesn't mean you don't have consequence. Forgiveness means that there are consequences, but those consequences are between them and the Lord. And also, sometimes those consequences can be civil, where there is civil courts and justice that needs to be applied, as Romans 13 says. And sometimes those have to get applied, and that's the right thing to do. But if I forgive them, it doesn't.

Should I be their friend? And the answer is sometimes. If it's a husband and wife, you need to seek to work that out as much as possible.

Absolutely. But Romans 12 18 says, If it is possible, as much as lies in you, live peaceably with all men. Again, in marriages, you need to seek to always restore that. But in some relationships with friendships or whatever, even family situations, it can get so toxic that they just continually pull situations down and it becomes a very destructive thing. And so forgiveness and separation, distancing yourself is the right thing to do.

But again, I understand that can be a very, there's a lot of nuances into that. Also, sometimes you can't even go to the person and forgive them because there's different legal things. And in those situations, you can write them a letter.

That's the way I always advise people to do it. But you need to reach out with forgiveness. Now, let me close with one last clarity of a misunderstanding concerning forgiveness.

Years ago, I had a guy say this to me. He said, I don't believe I need to ever forgive anybody unless they ask for it and I will not forgive people until they ask for it. And he used biblical reasons to justify it, such as in Luke 17 three and other places.

That is not right and for several reasons. He says, you know, God doesn't forgive unless people ask for forgiveness. Well, the problem is you're not God. God never sinned and God never needs to be forgiven. We are those who've been forgiven an infinite amount of debt and have been commanded by God to forgive constantly.

So that's the first thing. And then secondly, how does that work if somebody dies? They could never ask for forgiveness so you would be bound with bitterness the rest of your life.

Is that what you're saying? Also on the cross, Jesus didn't say, Father, forgive them for they asked. He said, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing. And if you carry it out, it would make us all live with bitterness in our life. Because how many times do people sin against us in they don't ask for forgiveness? So then we're going to carry around resentment all the time? Like you're going to pay for what you've done.

Instead of canceling the debt, we're walking around with all kinds of ledgers. You see the insanity of that kind of a conclusion? So if you've ever been subjected to that false belief, and you need me to explain it more, I can go a lot deeper than I have this time right now to go into that. But just understand that is a false way of thinking. And so today is your heart clean? Is there someone you need to forgive? First of all, you need to repent of a forgiving attitude.

How do I forgive? Come to God, God forgive me of this. They can sin against you. But if we don't forgive, we begin to sin against God by doing that. Secondly, we must forgive them quickly. Don't the longer you wait, the harder it is to forgive. Thirdly, recognize the situation a person may be a tool God is using to build spiritual character.

Number four, read the parable in Matthew 18. Realize we're the offending guy against God, and if He's forgiven us, we can forgive them. And then choose to forgive. Forgiveness is not a feeling, it's a choice. You may still feel frustrated, but you keep casting that on the Lord. And then rely on the Lord for the strength to forgive them. I can do all things through Christ. He's the one who strengthens me.

I'm not sufficient of myself. And let me wrap up with Ephesians 4 32. This is the central key, I believe, in forgiveness. The Bible says, Forgive one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Now, Pam is a sweet lady up here. And you just need to know, God forgave Pam, she got saved, not because Pam is good enough, though she is a sweet lady. God forgave Pam because the Bible says God forgave her for Christ's sake. In other words, God looked on Christ and granted her forgiveness. In the same way, when we forgive other people, we are to look on Christ and give them forgiveness based on Christ. It's not the goodness of the person to earn forgiveness. It's the goodness of a Savior that demands our obedience to Him, right? So today, if you're struggling with that, you need to take your eyes off the horizontal situation and put them on a vertical Savior.

And when you get right vertically, you can apply it horizontally. Does that make sense? You cannot make the person, well, they don't ask for it. What if they respond bad?

It'll make you more humble. It's hard. I get it. I get it.

Sometimes you're like, oh, you're just eating sand, man. But when you begin to realize the principles I told you today, this is the best way I can be like my Savior. You mean this is letting Jesus know how much I love Him? This is how I put on the Lord Jesus Christ? This is how I can truly worship God? I want to do that. I want to do that. So let's leave today as being a forgiving people so that we might live like Christ. Amen.