Forgiveness

Have your Bibles with you tonight. Turn with me, if you would, to Luke chapter 17, and we're going to be looking at verses 3 through 10. The Lord said, So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, We are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before your throne tonight thanking you and praising you that you are our God and that you have forgiven us as your children. Lord, what we realize about ourself is that there is no way on the face of this earth that we deserved your forgiveness. We are unrighteous. We are selfish.

We are filled with pride. And Lord, there are so many things that we could just confess to you tonight about what we aren't and what we should be. And yet, Lord, by the grace of God and by the power of the blood of Jesus, our sins have been washed away and we have been made right in your sight. When we stand before you in that last day, you will look at us and you will see not our filthy sin, but you will see the perfect righteousness of Christ. Heavenly Father, I look at my own life and how there have been so many times in my life where I have said to myself, I've forgiven somebody and, Lord, that has not truly and genuinely been the truth. And I pray, Heavenly Father, that you would help me that I might be more adept at forgiving, that, Lord, I might be more broken when I don't forgive quickly and, Father, that I might not become bitter. Lord, when that happens, all that does is drive me away from my fellowship with you. Heavenly Father, I would ask tonight that you give me wisdom and help me, Lord, as I preach this passage, that you would be uplifted and exalted through it and this congregation would be edified by it and we'll be very careful to give you praise, honor, and glory for all you do. That's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. What is forgiveness?

Right off the cuff, that seems to be a very easy question. Everybody knows what forgiveness is. Somebody does something to offend you and that person comes and apologizes to you and you say, hey, that's okay. No problem.

Everything's all right. And that's forgiveness. Well, no, that's not forgiveness. That doesn't even come close to what the Bible teaches us about true forgiveness. The Bible says nothing about apologizing. Apologizing is just the world's unsatisfactory substitute for God's forgiveness. And some would say that forgiveness is a feeling, but nowhere in the Bible does it speak of feelings of forgiveness or emotions of forgiveness.

So how do we even get at the real issue? I think we have to go to the Word of God. And in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 32, Paul says this, that we are to forgive one another just as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven us. So that means that our forgiveness should be modeled after God's forgiveness of us. And obviously when God forgives, He doesn't sit in the heavens and just emote.

It is much, much more than that. So forgiveness isn't a feeling. If it were, then we would never know when we were truly forgiven. Someone asked Martin Luther one time about forgiveness. And they asked him, do you feel like you've been forgiven of your sins? And he said, no, I don't feel like I've been forgiven of my sins.

I know I have been forgiven of my sins because the Word of God tells me so. So when God forgives, He goes on record. He makes a proclamation.

He makes a declaration. He says, I will not remember your sin. Isaiah 43, 45, God says, I am He that blocks out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. In Jeremiah 31, 34, the Lord says, I will forgive your iniquity, and I will remember your sin no more.

That has nothing to do with feelings or emotions. It is a declaration from God so that we can know that we are forgiven. And if you don't remember anything else that I say tonight, please remember this.

Forgiveness is not a feeling. It is a promise. And the promise of God is that He will remember our sins no more.

Now, let me ask you this. Does that statement, does that baffle you a little bit? I like that statement. I love that statement, but it does baffle me somewhat. When I think of a sovereign, omniscient God who knows everything past, present, and future, and I'm being told that He forgets our sins. Well, that does baffle me, but the truth of the matter is, we're not told that He forgets our sins. Forgetting sin is a passive thing. And you and I can forget because we're not omniscient. So we can forget, but not remembering is not passive, it's active.

And what does that mean? I think it's a determination by God to not hold our sins against us. It is God saying, I will not beat you over the head with guilt. In Psalm 25, 7, David prays to God and says, remember not the sins of my youth. In other places in the Bible, the word remember means to bring up and to deal with. In 3 John, verse 9, I mentioned this guy this morning.

His name was Diatrophes. And I shared with you this morning that in verse 9, John says about him that he was a man that always put self first. He was a man that was saying, King me, as I shared with you this morning. But John also says some more things about him. John was concerned about him because he was doing some things that was doing great damage to the church.

And John says this about Diatrophes. He says, I will remember you and when I get back to you and get back to the church, I will deal with you. And that's what the word remember has to do with. It has to do with not only thinking back to what this person has done, but dealing with the issue. So when God forgives, he makes a determination to not remember our sins. Having said all that, let me remind you that God's judicial forgiveness does not mean that our life as a Christian will not be evaluated and either be rewarded or receive loss of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. Erwin Lutzer said the following.

I think he said it well. Leading the list of mistaken ideas is the belief that there cannot be a serious review of our lives at the judgment seat of Christ because as believers, our sins are forgiven and cast into the depths of the sea. After all, the argument goes as far as God is concerned, our past failures and sins do not exist.

Doesn't Calvary cover it all? A friend of mine asked when I suggested that some people might experience deep regret along with lost privileges at the judgment seat of Christ. For him, the judgment seat of Christ is really no judgment at all. All believers will pass the judgment seat with flying colors.

Not so. Let us hear the words of Paul. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may be recompensed for his deeds done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

That phrase whether good or bad rids us of the cherished hope that our failures can never return to haunt us. Reminds us that our Father in heaven judges us even though we are secure in the knowledge that we are his children forever. Yet those who trust Christ alone for their salvation are redeemed, eternally forgiven, and legally perfect before God. We are not under condemnation, but have passed out of death unto life. We enter heaven with the righteousness of Christ credited to our account. We accept it on the basis of his worthy merit. To this all Christians must say, Amen. But, Paul did not see a contradiction between teaching justification by faith and the related fact that we shall be judged for all our deeds done in the body since our conversion.

With that in mind, let's take a look at Jesus' warning to us about forgiveness. He starts out by saying, Take heed. Some says, Pay attention. Some says, Be on guard. And that's interesting to me. That seems a little radical, doesn't it? To start a discussion on forgiveness with, Take heed.

Well, there's a reason for it. Jesus is telling us something here that is extremely tough. I've known people that were great, great theologians that would absolutely melt with what Jesus is saying here about forgiveness. This is not spiritual pablum that we're dealing with here tonight. This is not just some truths that we're throwing out so you'll be better at Bible jeopardy.

This is where the rubber hits the road for us, and Jesus is hitting us where we live. If you've ever read any biographies of Charles Spurgeon, and you've probably read about some of the physical handicaps and sicknesses and illnesses that he had to go through, he had a lot of things that were wrong with him. One of the things that he hated the most and was the very toughest on him was gout.

And there was a man in his church that came up to him and said, Charles, you just need to quit complaining. He said, you're always talking about how horrible gout is. He said, I've got rheumatism. Rheumatism pain is a lot worse than gout. And Spurgeon had rheumatism too.

And he took his glasses and put them down on the end of his nose, and he looked at that guy and he said, kind sir. He said, let me explain to you the difference between rheumatism pain and gout pain. He said, rheumatism pain is like sticking your hand in a vice and then taking that vice and twisting it around until the pain is so great you can't stand it. He said, gout is like taking it right there and then turning it three more times. Gout's tough. Jesus tells us to be on guard. In the first part of verse 3, it's going to hurt like rheumatism.

That's tough. But in the second part of verse 3, it's more like gout. Look at the rheumatism part, verse 3, part A. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. Now notice that this is a sin against you. You don't have the responsibility to be rebuking everybody else for all their sins.

This is if your brother has sinned against you, then you have the responsibility to go to him and to deal with that. How do you handle it? Well, let's just get real practical. Let's say that you're in a big crowd and all your friends are there and there's a guy that's there and he's got on a big set of army boots. You're there and you're barefooted.

So he thinks he's going to be funny. He comes over there with his big army boots. He lifts up his leg when you're not looking and he just comes down.

Bam! Just stomps your foot. And he laughs about it and he walks off. That pain has gone up from your foot all the way to your head.

I mean, the pain is just horrible. You look down at your toes. Your toes are already turning blue.

They look like little pancakes. I mean, he has flattened out your feet. He just kind of walks away and laughs about it. Well, what do you do?

Well, here's some typical reactions. Number one, you could throw yourself a pity party. You could whine and you could gripe and you could complain and you become a social recluse. You could just pout like a baby.

That's the kind of counsel Jesus gives. Second, you could pitch a fit. You could get mad and you could tell that person off. You could pull off your coat and kick it down the hall. Or you could do like Bobby Knight did and pick up a chair and throw it down through the gym. Or you could say to the offender, I don't get mad. I get even and go right over to him and stomp him on the foot to get him back. Jesus doesn't give that counsel either.

Then there's a third counsel. There's an oldie but a goodie. You could act real pious and you could go around to that big crowd where you are and you could say to each one of them, I want you to see what Brother Joe did to my foot. Would you look at my toes?

They're flat as pancakes. I mean, I'm in all kinds of pain and I'm just telling you this because I want you to pray for Joe. You know what that is? That sanctified gossip. And folks, that's absolutely horrible. Horrible. That's like, did you hear about Mr. So-and-so's daughter? She's had a baby out of wedlock.

I'm just telling you this because I want you to pray for her. Isn't that sweet? That's not sweet.

That's sad. And it's not the counsel that Jesus gives. Here's the counsel. If someone offends you, then rebuke him privately. You go to him and you tell him, you stepped on my toes and you may have thought it was funny but it hurt me and it hurt me bad and you need to deal with that.

The question arises, but wait a minute. He's the one that did the wrong. He should be coming to me. I shouldn't have to go to him. And Matthew 5 verse 24 says, if you've done something wrong to your brother, you ought to go to him.

So that's what he should do. But who he's talking to in this passage is not that one. It's the one who's hurt you. He's talking to you. And so the problem now is the Lord's command in this passage is straight to you. And the scripture says, you go to him. Hopefully you'll meet together halfway, but you go to him. Now the question is, why should you do that?

And the answer is, maybe the offender doesn't realize that he's offended you. Oh, Jay Adams wrote a great book on forgiveness and he said that in his book, used illustration, if there was a lady in his church named Jane and she had gone to Europe. She'd been gone for about a month and she finally came back. She was in church that Sunday and a good friend of hers was all the way on the other side of the church and she saw her that she'd come back and all excited.

So service ended. This lady gets up. She runs over there to see her friend. She gets right over there. She's trying to get around some people and she says, Jane, Jane, hey, I'm glad you're back.

We missed you so much. And Jane sticks her nose up in the air, twirls around and walks out without even speaking. And what's going on here? Why has she done that? Well, the lady says, I've been snubbed.

This is horrible. I don't like feeling this way. I should never speak to her again. And then this passage of scripture came to her mind.

I can't just walk away. And so she followed her out to her car. She got out to her car and she saw that she'd grabbed a box of Kleenexes and she was blowing her nose. And she went over to her and she tapped her on the shoulder and with tears in her eyes, she said, why did you snub me like that? And the lady said, what are you talking about? Jane said, listen, I've been in Europe for the last four weeks and I caught a terrible cold while I was there and my ears are stopped up and I can't hear a thing. And she said, I had to run out to the car because my nose is running and I had to blow my nose.

And she said, I didn't see you in there and I certainly didn't hear you. That's why Jesus said the offended person should go to the offender because maybe the offender doesn't know. But then once you've gone to him, what do you do? The scripture says you're rebuking. There's two Greek words for rebuke in the scripture and this one is epitomeio and it means to admonish tentatively. So you go and you explain the facts without an accusing attitude and then you wait for an explanation.

Perhaps there's been a misunderstanding and if not, then this guy has the opportunity to repent and he may tell you, well, man, what I did to you was wrong and I'm sorry about this and would you forgive me? So that's what you're hoping will happen. All right, so much for the rheumatism part.

Let's get to the tough part and tough parts hurts like gout. So let me read the second part of verse 3 and tack verse 4 along with it. And if he repents, forgive him.

And if he sins against you seven times in a day, seven times in a day, return to you saying, I repent, you shall forgive him. Another illustration. Say you're playing in a pickup basketball game. It gets pretty competitive. You're out there trying to win, everything's fun. There's one particular guy who's a friend of yours who's a little overly competitive and so he sees that you're getting ready to go up for a layup and he's kind of mad and he jumps up and he swatches the ball, misses the ball and hits you right in the face.

You kind of think he did this on purpose. You pull him off to the side and you say, look, that really hurt. You shouldn't be doing that.

We're out here to have a good time. And the guy says, man, I just got a bad temper. I'm sorry.

Please forgive me. He says, okay, you're forgiven. Let's go play ball. They go back out there about 10 minutes later. This guy's out there, that same guy that got slapped and now he's stealing the ball from this same guy. This guy's just overly competitive and when that happens, he gets overly aggressive and after just a minute, he pushes the guy down on the floor. The guy gets up, he goes back over to him.

They're both Christians. He says, look, this is the second time this has happened and said, you pushed me down. I don't know why you did that. And he said, I am so sorry. He said, it's just like an ungodly reflex and I shouldn't have done it and I repent. Please forgive me. He has a responsibility to repent. You see the difference there between rheumatism and gout? You see the difference?

I tell you, that would get old right quick if this guy just kept doing it and kept doing it and kept doing it and he kept repenting and you have the responsibility to forgive him. These disciples were pretty spiritual guys. So how did they respond to this? Verse 5, they look up to Jesus and they say, oh Lord, increase our faith. What were they saying? They were saying this, Lord, that's too hard.

You're asking us to do something that is way too hard. We don't have enough faith to forgive like that. Lord, if we're gonna forgive like that, then you're gonna have to increase our faith. What does Jesus say? Does he say, well, you guys are probably right.

That's probably just a little bit too much and he's asking for you. No, Jesus doesn't say that. Look what he says in verse 6. And the Lord said, if you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to the mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea and it would obey you. Was this a good response from the disciples? When they said, oh Lord, if you expect us to forgive in this way, you're gonna have to increase our faith. That was not a godly response at all. In fact, it was a pious cop-out.

So Jesus lowers both barrels at them. He says, listen, the issue here is not a faith issue. If you had faith just the size of a mustard seed, you could be doing all kinds of things. So the issue's not faith. The issue's obedience.

This is an obedient issue. This is not really a faith issue, so you just need to obey my word. Notice how Jesus deals with an excuse that he knows that they're gonna come up with. He just foresees them saying this and the excuse is the excuse of sincerity. People say, well, they said they were repentant. They said they were sorry. They said they would turn from it, but they turned right around and did it again. They weren't sincere. They didn't mean it. What'd Jesus say to them? He said, if your brother sins seven times in a day, seven times in a day, and I think that in a day is important. He said, you forgive them. You forgive them.

See why I called it gout? That's hard. But people say, well, if I could just see that their repentance was real, then it would be easy to forgive. Then I would know that there's spiritual fruit that's taking place there. Listen, can you see real spiritual fruit in a day? Can you see a watermelon that it can grow in a day? You can't see a watermelon grow in a day. Oh, how about an apple or a grape?

You can't see fruit grow like that in a day. And so the command is not to try to determine sincerity, not to look for the spiritual fruit, not to see if there's been genuine repentance in your opinion. It is this, if that person says to you, I'm sorry, I repent, I turn from this, then you have the responsibility before God to forgive him. Then Jesus tells a story to cap things off. Verses seven through 10. Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, come at once and recline at the table? Will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly and serve me while I eat and drink and afterwards you will eat and drink? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, we are unworthy servants.

We have only done what was our duty. Picture this if you can. There's a slave that's been out working. He gets up before the sun comes up in the morning, starts work.

He works all day long till after the sun's gone down. He finally gets back home and he's dirty. His clothes are dirty. He's dirty. He smells bad, needs a bath. He's sweating all day.

What does his master say to him? Well, man, you've had a tough day. Why don't you just go in, take you a bath right quick, come here, get you some food and I'll help you out here.

Then you can just go to bed early. You're tired. You need this rest. It's not what the master said, is it? The master said, this is what you do. He said, you go in and you take your bath right quick and then you change clothes because you're stinking and then you come out here and I want you to make my meal and make it as quick as you can and I want you to make my meal and I'm going to eat before you even think about eating. And so what does the servant do? He comes back in. He's there at the kitchen. He's got his frying pan full of fried chicken. He's got mounds of mashed potatoes and gravy and homemade biscuits and he sets it out before his master. Then after he sets it out before his master, he kind of stands back and he's got his little towel over his arm and he watches the master eat. He waits and he waits and he waits. Finally, that last forkful of mashed potatoes is going into his mouth and then he swallows that down. He kind of stretches a little bit leisurely and says, I think I'd like some dessert. And so what does the guy do? He runs back into the kitchen then he comes back out. He cleans off the table, gets everything perfect and then he goes back to get a big, big piece of coconut pie and just covers it over with mounds of whipped cream and he brings it out and he puts it before the master and the master just leisurely eats and enjoys his dessert.

Here's the situation that Jesus wants us to see. Everything in that man is saying, I want to eat that food. I want to eat it right now. I don't want to wait till later. I don't want to do this for my boss.

I want to satisfy myself right now. He can't do that. Why not? Because he must obey his master. He does not have the privilege of just doing what he feels like doing. Very interesting what Jesus says. Jesus says this, servant has not done anything exceptional. He's just done what he was supposed to do. Here's another question.

If I forgive somebody and I really don't feel like it, does that make me a hypocrite? Oh no. Our society has convinced us that we have to run on feelings, but that's not biblical. Some of you hate to get up in the morning. I mean, you really hate to get up in the morning. And so your clock goes off and it's still dark outside.

What do you want to do? You want to reach over, slap that alarm clock, put your pillow over your head and sleep for another hour. But you don't do that.

Instead, the clock goes off, you get up, you stretch a little bit, you go and wash your face off, you change your clothes and you head off to work. Now, you didn't want to do that. Does that make you a hypocrite? Oh no. You just did what you were supposed to do.

Let me close with this. Refusal to forgive is a decision for revenge. In Romans 12, Paul quoted the Lord and said this, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. It's not our responsibility to get even.

It's not our responsibility to seek retribution for an offense. That's God's business. In the 50th chapter of Genesis, there's a great passage there where Joseph's brothers are talking to Joseph after Jacob, their father, has died. And I want to read you that passage and then I want to read you what James Boyce had to say about that and we'll close with this. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, it may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him. So they sent a message to Joseph saying, your father gave this command before he died. Say to Joseph, please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you. And now please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.

Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, behold, we are your servants. But Joseph said to them, do not fear for I am in the place of God.

As for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. So do not fear. I will provide for you and your little ones. Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. James Boyce said this, Joseph reassured them in what is surely one of the great statements of scripture, don't be afraid, am I in the place of God. You intended to harm me but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

So then don't be afraid, I will provide for you and your children. What gave Joseph the grace to make this remarkable reply? There is only one answer, Joseph knew God. In particular, he knew two things about God. He knew that God is sovereign and nothing ever comes into the life of any one of his children that he has not approved first. There are no accidents and he knew that God is good. Therefore, the things that come into our lives by God's sovereignty are for our benefit and for others and not for our harm. What Joseph saw and spoke of in this next to the last scene of his earthly life is what the Apostle Paul wrote about eloquently hundreds of years later.

It is a text often memorized by Christian people. We know that in all things God works together for good those who love him who are the called according to his purpose. It is impossible to overestimate the wonder of this verse. So Joseph says, I can forgive because my God is God.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this passage. We thank you, Lord, for your wisdom to the disciples.

Lord, at this point in time in their lives and their discipleship there was still a lot of misunderstanding and there was deep need for guidance from your Spirit. I thank you, Lord, that it is recorded for us in Scripture that we might know the importance of being a people who forgive. Heavenly Father, guide and direct us that we might be a forgiving people. There might be no root of bitterness in any of our lives that, Lord, when things happen that hurt us and are against us that we might realize that the call that we have on our lives is to forgive. Thank you and praise you for your goodness and love to us. We ask this prayer in your holy and precious name. Amen.