CS Lewis said, Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive. It's not hard to see that our world needs to be a more forgiving place. It's easy to spot unforgiveness in others. It's much harder when it's our turn to forgive. But what if forgiveness is at the very heart of the Kingdom of Heaven?
What if it's a defining mark of those who follow Jesus? Stay with us to learn about three upside-down characteristics of forgiveness, its gravity, its symmetry, and its trajectory. From Chicago, welcome to The Moody Church Hour with Pastor Philip Miller. Stay with us for a time of worship and teaching as we continue a series on the upside-down kingdom.
From the Sermon on the Mount, we'll learn about asking the Father to forgive us our debts. Here now is Pastor Philip, along with Executive Pastor Bill Burchie and worship leader Tim Stafford. Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to The Moody Church.
Whether you're here on site or online or on the airwaves, we're so glad you're here. We're talking about forgiveness today, the forgiveness that God gives to us and the forgiveness he calls us to give to one another. Would you stand and pray with me as we begin this morning? Father, you have lavished forgiveness on us in Jesus Christ.
You've changed our lives forever. And now you call us to join you in this wonderful redemptive work of extending forgiveness to others. Father, we don't find that easy to do, and so we need you to come and teach us a new way to live. So come and show us that way through Jesus, we pray in his name. Amen.
Amen. Do you know who you are? You are the people of God. You are none other than the people God has chosen. And so let's celebrate that today as we read the scriptures, as we begin all the work that God is doing.
I see it all, but by his spirit, it is happening and nothing can stop it. Let's read the scriptures together. This is God's holy word. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.
Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Amen. Don't forget who you are.
Don't forget all your debts are paid. Don't forget that you are the people of God. Once you were in darkness. In the darkness, we were waiting without hope, without light, till from heaven you came running. There was mercy in your eyes to fulfill the law and prophets.
To a virgin came the word, from a throne of endless glory to a cradle in the dirt. To reveal the kingdom coming and to reconcile the lost, to redeem the whole creation you did not despise the cross, for even in your suffering you saw to the other side, knowing this was our salvation, Jesus for our Savior died. In the morning that you rose, all of heaven held its breath, till that stone was moved for good, for the Lamb may conquer death. And the dead rose from their tombs and the angels stood in awe, for the souls of all who had come to the Father are restored.
And the church of Christ was born, there was fear in lip of faith, now this gospel truth of old shall not kneel, shall not faint. By His love in His name, in His freedom high and free, for the love of Jesus Christ who has resurrected me. Praise the Lord. Praise the Father, praise the Son, praise the Spirit, bring Him Lord, God of glory, majesty. Praise forever to the kingdom of peace. Praise the Father, praise the Son, praise the Spirit, bring Him Lord, God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the kingdom of peace. Praise the Lord. I'm singing out loud the voice of the Lord, and my song shall ever be, out loud the voice of the Lord, praise the Spirit, bring Him Lord, God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the kingdom of peace, bring Him Lord, God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the kingdom of peace.
Praise the Lord. He took my sins and my sorrows, He made them His very own, and He bore the burden to Calvary, and suffered and I know, singing out loud the voice of the Lord, and my song shall ever be, out loud the voice of the Lord, praise the Spirit, bring Him Lord, God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the kingdom of peace, bring Him Lord, God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the kingdom of peace, when with the ransomed in glory His face I at last shall see. To be my joy through the ages, to sing out His love for me, singing out loud the voice of the Lord, praise the Spirit, bring Him Lord, God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the kingdom of peace, bring Him Lord, God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the kingdom of peace, bring Him Lord, God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the kingdom of peace, when with the ransomed in glory His face I at last shall see. To be my joy through the ages, to sing out loud the voice of the Lord, praise forever to the kingdom of peace, bring Him Lord, God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the kingdom of peace, when with the ransomed in glory His face I at last shall see.
To be my joy through the ages, to sing out loud the voice of the Lord, praise forever to the kingdom of peace, bring Him Lord, God of glory, majesty, praise forever to the kingdom of peace, bring Him Lord, God of glory, mercy, praise forever to the kingdom of peace, way too much tribalism, way too much hatred, way too much violence. It's not hard to see that our families need to be more forgiving places. There's way too much fighting and way too much bitterness, way too much estrangement. It's not hard to see that our churches need to be more forgiving places.
Way too much gossip, way too much judgmentalism, way too much division. And of course it's easy to spot unforgiveness in other people, isn't it? It's much harder when it's our turn to forgive. But the reality is we need to be a more forgiving people, right?
We. We have too much anger in our hearts. We have too many wounds that we are nursing. We have too many grudges that we are holding inside. Unforgiveness always rises from hurt, a place of hurt.
Someone hurts us or hurts our people, sometimes deeply, irretrievably. And that pain naturally starts to turn into anger. And anger generates a kind of energy of its own. Pain inflicts more pain. Anger fuels more anger. Hate breeds more hate. Violence begets more violence. Because hurt people hurt people. Hurt people hurt people. And then those hurt people who hurt more people, who then in turn hurt still more people, and the hurt goes on and on until the world looks like our front page news.
But what if there's another way? What if forgiveness can turn the world upside down? What if forgiveness is actually at the very heart of the life of the kingdom of heaven? What if forgiveness is the way of Jesus?
It might just change the whole world. Grab your Bibles, we're going to be in Matthew 6 verses 9 to 15 this morning. You'll find today's reading on page 811 in your pew Bible. This is the Lord's Prayer. Famous verses that many of us know by heart, let's read them together. We're going to look at another two verses beyond the prayer today, which I'll read. But let's say the prayer together.
Jesus introduces it, Matthew 6, 9, saying pray them like this, let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.
Amen. And then Jesus adds these words. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Thanks be to the Lord for the reading of his word. This morning I want to show you three attributes of forgiveness. Three attributes of forgiveness. We're going to see the gravity of forgiveness, the symmetry of forgiveness, and the trajectory of forgiveness. Gravity, symmetry, trajectory of forgiveness.
Before we turn to God's word now, would you bow your heads? Let's ask the Lord to be our teacher. Father, there's probably no more invasive idea than forgiveness. It runs down deep to the very core of who we are, to some of the most difficult things we've ever faced in our lives.
It brings back pain, and agony, and injustice, and we need to know what to do with our hearts. Father, would you set us free, liberate us on the inside, teach us the way of Jesus, and how to forgive? We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
Amen. First, the gravity of forgiveness. The gravity of forgiveness. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. It's an interesting word, isn't it? Debts.
It's a financial language. It's evocative of like a bankruptcy court. It's like we've racked up all this debt, and we can't possibly repay it, and our only hope is for our debt to be forgiven.
Right? This prayer assumes that you and I, we have racked up enormous debts with God. That's the implication. Forgive us our debts. And that other people have racked up enormous debts with us as we have also forgiven our debtors. So what's with this debt? I think we all intuitively grasp that this is not ultimately about monetary debt. It's about sin debt.
Right? But why this imagery? Why does Jesus use the imagery of indebtedness? Well, one of the ways we can think about sin is that sin is a failure to give someone their due.
Sin is a failure to give someone their due. So when it comes to God, God is our creator. He's our sustainer. He's the giver of all good things. And therefore, you and I, we owe Him gratitude, respect, honor, love, devotion, trust, obedience, worship. We owe God a great deal of things that are rightfully due His name. And when we fail to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we fail to give God His due.
In a sense, we are in His debt. Does that make sense? The same thing happens in human relationships. People are made in the image of God.
Yes? And therefore, human beings have certain things that are due to them. Honor, dignity, respect, value. And when we fail to love our neighbors as ourselves, we fail to give God's image bearers what they are due. And we are in their debt as well. In a sense, whenever we sin, we fail to give God and other people what they are rightfully due. And so we are in their debt. And you and I live in a web of indebtedness. People owe us because they failed to give us our due in life. And we owe others because we've failed to give them their proper due.
And we, all of us, owe God a great deal because every single one of us has failed to give Him His rightful due. Now in the normal cause of things, what we do with the debt is you've got to make someone pay, right? So in this case, when it comes to human interactions and our interactions with God, we've got to make somebody pay.
Someone has to pay the debt. You hurt me, I'm going to hurt you, make you pay. You take from me, I'm going to take from you, I'm going to make you pay. You break my heart, I'll break yours, I'm going to make you pay.
You created this debt, now pay up. Retaliation, retribution, revenge. It is the cycle of endless violence that ravages our world, don't you see?
That's the normal way of things. But remember, Jesus is introducing us to a whole different way. Another way entirely. The way of the kingdom of heaven, the new heart of the spirit, the way of Jesus. Where we don't have to be angry, but we can be reconciled to our brothers. Where we can love our enemies and do good to those who harm us and pray for those who persecute us.
This is all unnatural behavior, supernatural behavior. It is an end to the cycle of endless violence, of retaliation, retribution, revenge. Jesus is introducing us to an entirely upside down kingdom idea.
He's introducing us to forgiveness. What if instead of exacting payment, we chose instead to forgive the debt? What if instead of exacting payment, we chose instead to forgive the debt? Instead of forcing them to pay up, what if we absorbed the debt ourselves and forgave?
Well, if we could figure out how to do that, it would stop the cycle of violence, wouldn't it? Mercy would triumph over judgment. Forgiveness would turn the whole world on its head. And of course, friends, this is exactly what God did for us in Jesus Christ. While we were yet sinners and enemies of God, Christ died for us. When we owed a debt we could never pay, Jesus paid a debt he never owed. Jesus died in our place and for our sake, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring us to God. And on the cross, Jesus cries out, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
Don't you see Jesus broke the cosmic cycle of violence on the cross. Instead of making us pay, he absorbed the debt in himself and forgave. In this prayer, Jesus is inviting us to bring all of our debt-ridden sin to our Father. Father, forgive us our debts. For if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1, 9. But notice that's not where the prayer stops.
It continues. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. There is a connection between the forgiveness we receive and the forgiveness we extend.
Do you see that? There's a connection between the forgiveness we receive and the forgiveness we extend. Jesus puts an even finer point on it in verses 14 to 15. For if you forgive others, their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Now the language has shifted here. We've gone from debts to trespasses.
We're still talking about sin, but the imagery is different. Trespassing is crossing the line, crossing a line. A debt is when I fail to give someone what is rightfully due to them. A trespass is when I cross a line and I do something I shouldn't have done. So if I fail to love as I ought to, that's a debt. But if I do harm instead, that's a trespass. So if you are familiar with theology, we have sins of omission, which create a debt.
I omitted to do the thing I was supposed to do. And sins of commission, this is something where it's a trespass. I've done something I shouldn't have done.
I crossed a line. But once again, the core idea here is what will we do with the sin? Whether it's a debt or a trespass, the central issue is will we forgive? Will we forgive? And Jesus is saying, somehow, my own forgiveness before God is connected with the forgiveness I extend to others in this life.
You see that? For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Now, verses like this kind of mess with you, don't they? Is this messing with you? Is this rattling? Is it disquieting?
Is it unnerving? I think Jesus knows exactly what he's doing. He wants us to wrestle with this.
He wants it to like throw us off our balance so that we try to figure out what is going on here. What is the connection between the forgiveness we receive and the forgiveness we extend? What's the connection? Now, I'm not going to answer that right away. I want to take you to one other passage, Matthew 18. Because in Matthew 18, Jesus tells a parable about forgiveness that helps us understand how this connection works. So turn in your Bibles. We're going to go to Matthew 18.
I normally don't make you turn, but let's do that today. Matthew 18, verses 21 to 35. Then Peter came up and said to him, Jesus, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times?
I love this. How often do I have to forgive people? Come on, like seven? Peter reaches for the biggest number he can think of, right? Seven. Jesus says, verse 22, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. Then Jesus tells the story, verse 23. Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. Pause for a second. We are not familiar with these economic numbers.
Let me explain this. One talent was worth twenty years' wages for a blue-collar laborer. Twenty years' wages.
Let's say forty thousand a year times twenty years. Eight hundred thousand dollars, one talent. He owes ten thousand of these talents. Eight hundred thousand dollars times ten thousand is eight billion dollars. Okay? It would take him, at his current earning rate, two hundred thousand years to pay off this debt.
Okay? So this is not Elon Musk where he can just buy Twitter over the weekend, okay? He doesn't have that kind of largess. Verse 25. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.
Common practice in those days. Verse 26. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything. Can he do that?
No. Verse 27. And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when the servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.
A denarii was a daily coin paid to day laborers. It was a day's wages. So let's just use our annual salary of forty thousand dollars. That's a hundred and fifty dollars per working day. Okay?
Five days a week. So this is roughly fifteen thousand dollar debt. It's a substantial amount, but nothing compared to the eight billion he just got forgiven, right?
Okay. He found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me, and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay off the debt. When his fellow servant saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. And his master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you.
And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay off all his debt. So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from the heart. So once again, we see that there is a connection between the forgiveness we receive and the forgiveness we extend. To put it succinctly, unforgiving people are unforgiven people. Unforgiving people are unforgiven people. That's what Jesus is saying.
It's a heavy reality, isn't it? There's a gravity to forgiveness. Secondly, there's a symmetry of forgiveness. The symmetry of forgiveness.
In the Lord's Prayer, in Jesus' exposition in verses 14 and 15, and in this parable that Jesus tells in Matthew 18, in all three of these passages, there is a connection between the forgiveness we receive and the forgiveness we extend. But the question is, what is the connection? I want to suggest to you that the connection is not one of causation, but one of coordination. The relationship is not one of causation, it is one of coordination.
What do I mean by that? Causation, we're familiar with this cause and effect. If the connection between the forgiveness we receive from God and the forgiveness we extend to other people is one of causation, what we would be saying then is that God forgives me because I forgive others.
That his forgiveness depends on my forgiveness, and that it is up to me to earn forgiveness from God by my forgiveness of other people. But is that the gospel? No.
I hope you say it really loud. Is that the gospel? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
No. That's salvation by works. That's earning forgiveness by what I do. And the Bible is abundantly clear, Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, for it is by grace that we are saved through faith, and this is not of ourselves.
It is a gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. The connection between the forgiveness we receive and the forgiveness we extend cannot be one of causation because that would be a denial of the gospel and a contradiction of the overwhelming clear teaching of the scriptures. So what is the connection? I'm going to suggest that it is one of coordination.
Coordination. That when it comes to forgiveness, receiving and extending go together. That when it comes to forgiveness, receiving and extending go together. In other words, there's a symmetry to forgiveness.
That those who have received forgiveness naturally and necessarily extend forgiveness to others. They're coordinate actions. They go together. It's like inhaling and exhaling.
Forgiveness received and extended. It is one act, one muscle group. Or to put it differently, it is like roots and fruits. Healthy roots lead to healthy fruits.
Unhealthy roots lead to unhealthy fruits. If we are rooted in the forgiveness of God, the tree of our lives will bear the fruit of forgiveness toward one another. It is the natural and necessary outgrowth of where we've been planted. And conversely, if we are not rooted in the forgiveness of God, the tree of our lives will bear the fruit of unforgiveness toward others.
Jesus said, you will know a tree by its fruit. So the root of forgiveness naturally and necessarily bears the fruit of forgiveness. And the fruit of unforgiveness betrays a lack of forgiveness at the root, you see. Because unforgiveness, friends, is ultimately rooted in pride. It's ultimately rooted in pride.
Think about it. To be unforgiving, you have to feel superior. You're standing in judgment over the other person that you're mad at.
You're looking down at them. And you feel morally superior and better than they are. I'm self-righteous.
They're the problem, not me. But self-righteousness is not the posture of a soul that has received forgiveness from God. Each of us, friends, has amassed an infinite debt before God. He's given us life and breath and everything else. And instead of honoring him and living for him as he deserves, we've hijacked our lives and spent them on ourselves. And we find ourselves 8 billion plus in debt when it comes to God.
200 lifetimes can't even pay it off. And God forgives all of that debt in Jesus Christ. When Jesus died in our place and for our sake and bore our sin and shame on the cross and rose again so that we might be right with God forever, friends, everything changed.
Our debt is paid. We stand in grace. We're recipients of mercy. We are pardoned and forgiven and it humbles us to the ground. Forgiveness by definition slays pride in our hearts. There's no room for superiority or self-righteousness, no room for looking down on other people.
Friends, don't you see? Unforgiveness in our lives reveals a prideful self-righteousness at the core of our being that's incompatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Unforgiveness comes from self-righteous pride. And self-righteous pride can't grow in a heart that's overwhelmed by the grace of God's forgiveness.
It just doesn't belong there. Forgiveness, you see, it works on us. It humbles us. It amazes us. It graces us.
It changes us on the inside. And it becomes the very thing that then allows us to forgive other people. Friends, the same pride that keeps us from asking for forgiveness and receiving it is the same pride that keeps us from forgiving other people. And the same humility that comes from being forgiven is the same humility that enables us to then forgive others as well. Because forgiven people forgive people. Forgiven people forgive people.
Isn't that how the gospel works on us? That we have received mercy so that we might extend mercy. We've received grace that we might be conduits of grace. We've received forgiveness that we might pass on forgiveness. There's a symmetry to forgiveness. You see it.
You see it. The trajectory of forgiveness now. The trajectory of forgiveness.
I hope you sense that all of this is going somewhere. That forgiveness has a trajectory. That it moves in and through and beyond us.
It sweeps us off our feet and rushes us onward to the unknown horizons. We are forgiven so that we might become forgiving. We are forgiven so that we might become forgiving.
Friends, when Jesus said on the cross, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. In that moment he unleashed a cascade of forgiveness that would conspire to change the course of human history. He absorbed our debt. He forgave our sin. Our eight billion plus debt.
He wiped it out forever. And when the sweetness of that mercy falls on your soul and drips down into your heart and works on the brittleness of who you are, it starts to soften and change you on the inside out. It melts you and we can't hold back from forgiveness from forgiving people who owe us $15,000.
You see, when you've been forgiven so much you can't hold out on the smaller stuff. Now we've got to forgive one another as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven us. We've got to love our enemies. For when we were enemies Christ died for us. We've got to overcome evil with good because that's exactly what Jesus did when he laid down his life on the cross.
We've got to forgive our debtors for our debts have been forgiven. And all of a sudden you see what's happening to us. We're being conformed to the image of God. We are growing in the likeness of God as sons and daughters of him.
God is making us, you and me, this is shocking, he's making us his co-conspirators in the redemption of the universe. The forgiveness we have received becomes the substance of our inner life which then naturally and necessarily flows out toward those around us. We are forgiven so that we might become forgiving. God is making us like himself, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love, and rich in mercy.
So how does this work? The first thing we've got to do is receive God's forgiveness. Receive God's forgiveness. Father forgive us our debts.
Forgive us our debts. In a room this size I know there are some of you here probably who struggle with the idea of being forgiven. You've done things you wish you had never done. You've seen things you wish you had never seen.
You've been someone you wish you've never been. And I want you to hear the words of your Jesus on the cross. It is finished.
It is finished. Father, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. Your 8 billion plus debt before God of all your sin it is paid in full. There is no sin beyond his mercy. There is no failure beyond his grace.
There is no debt beyond his payment. There is no dirtiness beyond his cleansing. There is no guilt beyond his forgiveness.
Amen? If we confess our sins, if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Friends would you dare to believe today that in Jesus Christ you are finally fully forever forgiven.
Would you dare to believe it? Let it all the way in and all the way down. It'll change you. I promise. The second thing we've got to do is having received God's forgiveness is to extend God's forgiveness.
Extend it. Having received so much mercy and grace and the immeasurable forgiveness of our Lord we have no choice but now to extend forgiveness to those who have hurt us. I know this is hard. It helps me to remember that forgiveness is not a feeling. Nobody ever feels like forgiving.
If you wait till you feel like it you'll never do it. Forgiveness is not forgetting either. Some pain is too great. The wounds are too deep. You're never gonna forget what happened. You don't need to.
You can't. Forgiveness is not an excuse. It's not excusing what happened. Forgiveness is not saying what they did is okay.
It's not saying you deserved it. It was inexcusable. It was sin.
It was wrong what they did. It's not okay. Forgiveness is not reckless trust. Forgiveness is a gift. Trust is earned. Forgiveness is a gift.
Trust is earned. Just because you forgive doesn't mean there's no boundaries going forward. Forgiveness isn't anti-justice either. You can forgive and still press charges.
You can forgive and take steps to make sure that no one else has to face what you faced. No, forgiveness is the decision to pay the debt yourself and be done with it. To pay the debt yourself and be done with it. Someone's got to pay the debt. It's a decision. It's a choice.
It's an act of the will. Even though my every feeling wants to make them pay, I choose instead to forgive. And I'm going to pay the debt myself. Sin always creates a debt.
The forgiver always pays the debt, friends. Jesus paid the debt for us, didn't he? He absorbed our debt. It didn't go away. The debt was there.
He absorbed it. He forgave it. Jesus paid the price. And likewise when we forgive others, we pay the price for what happened. Father forgive them for they know not what they do.
That's a merciful statement. And then finally be done with it. Be done with it. Put it behind you.
Tell someone you're doing it and move forward. No longer carrying the weight of anger and bitterness and vengeance and unforgiveness for the rest of your days. Bottom line, we're called to forgive one another as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven us. Forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you.
There are three promises we make when we forgive. Number one, I won't dwell on it. I won't dwell on it.
That's the point of Peter's question seven times. No, 77 times. Do you know how often you have to forgive? Your brain doesn't let go of stuff. Every time it comes back, forgive. Every time it comes back, forgive until it becomes muscle memory. Secondly, I won't weaponize it. If I forgive someone, I'm not going to weaponize it anymore. I'm not going to bring it up and use it against them and throw it in their face. Thirdly, I won't gossip about it.
I'm not going to hold this over them and talk about it with my friends and sabotage their reputation and build my camp, you know. Listen to these verses that Paul writes. Ephesians 4 32. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.
Colossians 3 12 to 15. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bearing with one another and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you. So you also must forgive and above all these put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. Do you see the gospel logic? See the gospel logic of what has been received now becomes the ethical imperative of our lives that we must extend what we've received through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It changes our hearts and orients us differently in life. You see this? So two questions. Where do you need to receive your Father's forgiveness today and where do you need to extend your Father's forgiveness today? Father forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Do you pray with me? Father this really hits home. Every single one of us in Jesus Christ have been forgiven more than we could ever imagine and yet our pride makes it so hard to forgive others. Father would you help the gospel to come into our hearts and souls so deeply that it slays our pride to the ground. That it uproots the self-righteousness in our hearts. That it makes us people of forgiveness so that the whole of our lives might be conformed to the image of who you are. That this is how you are. You are a God of great forgiveness of great mercy and compassion.
This is who you are. Through the power of the gospel in Jesus Christ and the indwelling of your Holy Spirit would you make us people who look like you. Who acts like you and who can become salt and light scattered out into the world to change this cycle of endless violence that has this world wrapped around the neck. Make us people of grace, of mercy, of forgiveness, co-conspirators with you in the redemption of this world. Use us we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Remember Moody Church you are loved more than you know and now it's time for us to go and be the church.
Have a great week. On today's Moody Church Hour we heard Pastor Philip Miller telling us about asking the Father to forgive us our debts. This has been the 15th in a 24 part series from the Sermon on the Mount in the book of Matthew. We'd all like to avoid tests in life because these are moments of accountability that expose us for who we really are. The danger of tests is that we'll come to realize we're frail and faltering beings. Next time we'll explore the phrase in the Lord's Prayer, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
We'll let Jesus teach us how to prepare for life's tests. The Moody Church Hour is a listener supported ministry. We count on the ongoing financial support of listeners like you. Together we share solid biblical teaching that transforms lives across America and around the world. You can call us at 1-800-215-5001.
That's 1-800-215-5001. Online you'll find us at moodychurchhour.com. That's moodychurchhour.com. Or write to us at Moody Church Media, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. This broadcast is a ministry of The Moody Church.
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