Mm. Nothing feels more liberating than your sin being forgiven by God. But a close second is the feeling of freedom you experience by forgiving others. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah continues his study of the Lord's Prayer, which focuses on forgiveness in both directions.
Sharing the four stages of forgiveness, here's David to conclude his message. prayer and personal relationships. You know the high standard of forgiveness is According to the scripture, it goes like this: We forgive others, even as Christ has forgiven us, even as God has forgiven us for Christ's sake. That is a high standard. But stop and think about all that we have been forgiven.
And then, out of the reservoir of that forgiveness, you forgive others who may have hurt you. There's not any more important or practical lesson in this whole series than what we're talking about right now. And we'll get to it in just a moment. But first, let me remind you again that during the month of August, when you help us with your support, and send a gift a Turning Point of any size, we want to send to you a beautiful book on prayer. It's called Everything to God in Prayer, and it's filled with prayers for incidental situations in your life.
I wish I could read some of these, but I'll just tell you, if you ever have wondered how do I pray about that? You will probably find the answer in this book. And I want you to have it. It's yours for the asking when you send a gift to Turning Point during the month of August. You still have some time to do that, but don't put it off.
Do it today. And you'll be glad you did when you get this book and are able to use it and unpack its truth. Here's part two of Prayer and Personal Relationships. The idea that is before us is that When we seek forgiveness for our own sin against God, For which we are indebted, that we are to forgive those who have sinned against us. This is pretty heady stuff.
Our relationship with the Lord cannot be right until our relationship with others is made right. In fact, Jesus has intimated at this very thing back in the fifth chapter of Matthew when he says in verses 23 and 24: Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that thy brother has aught against thee, leave your gift at the altar. That's your God relationship. Forget about your God relationship for a minute and go get your person relationship straightened out. Then come back and get your God relationship right.
The Talmud, which is the rabbinical commentary on the Old Testament, says: He who is indulgent toward others' faults will be mercifully dealt with by the supreme judge himself. And isn't it interesting that even later in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 43 we read. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor, hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemy, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the sons of your father. Jesus says, if you want to be known as a Godchild, walk around with the spirit of forgiveness in your heart because that gives you a way. And in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 32, Paul wrote to the Ephesian believers, and he says, We're to forgive even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven us.
That's the standard. Proverbs 19, 11 says, That it is the glory of a man to pass over a transgression. There's something very special about a person who learns about forgiveness. But if Jesus included it in his prayer, and commented on it after his prayer. He illustrated it masterfully with the story he told.
in Matthew 18. This is a familiar story to us. If you want to follow in your Bibles, you can turn to the 18th chapter of Matthew. kind of follow along as I review the story. Actually The story itself begins in the 23rd verse.
This provides us a final illustration to help us understand what Jesus meant when he taught us to pray: forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. The text, beginning at verse 15, deals with the issue of forgiveness. But in verse 21, Peter says, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Till seven times? And Jesus said, I say not unto you until seven times, but until 70 times seven, indefinitely, infinitively, unendingly, forgive.
Then he tells a story in verse 23. He says, There's a kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king which would take account of his servants. And when he has begun to reckon, one was brought unto him which owed him 10,000 talents.
Now, I want to stop there for just a moment. I want to tell you how much 10,000 talents is. 10,000 talents is so much money that it's hard for us even to conceive. For example, one talent could be worth about 6,000 days' work.
So it would take this man 19 years working six days a week to earn one talent. And he owed 10,000 of them. How could a servant ever get in that kind of trouble? But he did. I don't know if he was embezzling or made bad investments, but he was in terrible, terrible straits.
He had nothing with which to pay. If it is hard to believe how he got in that kind of trouble, How stupid he was to get into that kind of trouble. The thing that is even more difficult for us to comprehend is what he said when he was brought before the king. The servant fell down and worshipped the king, and he said, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And when we know how much he owed and we hear what he says, we almost want to laugh out loud.
Sure, right. That's the stupidest thing I ever read. He would have to live 190 years and put every dime he ever earned into his debt. This man was a fool no matter how you look at it. And so we're filled with angry responses that he would do this and respond this way.
Well, you know the story. decides that he can't pay, the debt is too great.
So he says, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to forgive you all.
Now, let's stop for a moment and make sure we have the cast straight. Who does the king represent? God. And who is the servant? All of us.
We owed a debt we could not pay. And he forgave. How could he forgive a debt as astronomical as that? How could he forgive a debt? That was so great that the only way he could cope with the greatness of it was to send his own son to the cross and let him die.
Now, the scripture says in the story that once. The servant was forgiven. He went out. and some of those who owed him money. came to him.
And while their sum is a paltry sum in comparison to that which he had been forgiven. It was a great deal to those who owed it, and they came and said, We can't pay. Would you forgive us? And the Bible says that the one who had been forgiven so much by the king. Grabbed hold of them by the throat and demanded that they pay him everything they owe him.
And when the other servants saw what happened, they went and told the king. And the king was furious. And the Bible says that the Lord delivered him to the Inquisitors. He brought him in and he was thrown in jail. And then the scripture says, and listen carefully, here's the application.
So, my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses. And there's the same word. Do you get that? Do you understand what Jesus is saying? In Matthew chapter 6, verses 14 and 15, in Matthew chapter 18 in the story, what Jesus is saying is: we are to forgive others.
what they owe us because we ourselves have been forgiven so much. And if we will not forgive them, then we will never experience the joy of the forgiveness which is ours. Our forgiveness of others is conditioned upon God's forgiveness of us. And he has forgiven so much. How could there be anything?
that would be too great. That would slip out from underneath the category of God's forgiveness.
Now, I have written down in my notes next to this passage in Matthew chapter 6 four things, and I want to just run them by you quickly because this is what this passage teaches. Number one, it teaches us that we're to forgive because we are forgiven. Number two, it teaches us we're to forgive just as we are forgiven, freely, fully, unconditionally. Number three, we are to forgive that we might be forgiven. That's the gist of the passage.
And number four, we're to forgive before we need to be forgiven.
Now, before we go any further to make application of this to your life and mine, let me ask this question: What is going on here? How can our forgiveness of others in any way condition God's forgiveness of us? Does that not make salvation a work? Does it not sound as if that in order for me to earn God's forgiveness, I have to go out and find everybody who has anything against me and forgive them? Does that not sound as if we have moved away from grace and faith and justification and now slipped back into a salvation by works?
I don't think so. How many of you know that there are two kinds of forgiveness? How many of you know that when you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, when He came to live within your heart, at that very moment when you made that decision, at that moment there was something that happened in the court of heaven, and you were judicially forgiven. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, was applied to your account. Your sins were remitted and taken away, and you then, before God, were viewed as you are viewed now, clean and whole and forgiven.
When God in heaven looks at your account, And he sees all that you have ever done over it is stamped, paid in full, forgiven, absolutely, completely forgiven, judicially free. Can I get a witness? How many of you are glad for that? Isn't that good news? And nothing can change that.
Nothing. But there's a kind of relational forgiveness. That's locked into 1 John 1:9 and John chapter 13, where we're told the story of our Lord washing the feet of the disciples. Do you remember that wonderful story? And the disciples understood this illustration.
It was to illustrate the fact that if you've been washed, You are clean every whit. That's your salvation. But every day when you walk on the earth, your feet get dirty, and once in a while they need to be washed, and that's relational cleansing. You can't ever fall out of judicial forgiveness, but you can sure fall out of relational forgiveness, can't you? The best story I know to tell you, to help you understand that, Is this story out of my own life?
When I was a teenager, my father had a Chrysler. Beautiful Chrysler is the nicest car he ever owned. He was a poor preacher, didn't have a lot of new cars, but this was a new car, and he was really proud of it. Chrysler Newport. Never forget it.
That's when those cars were big old cars, you know, great big old cars. I was not yet at the age of driving, but I was getting close. And I thought I was ready. And one day, when my dad was gone and my mother was gone, they had gone on a trip someplace, he had left the keys to the car on the table. And I was home alone and I thought, Why not?
Why not? And, young people, if you're listening to me, listen to the whole story because I got in a lot of trouble. I want you to know this, all right? I drove this car, and where I lived in Ohio, out in Cedarville, we didn't have a lot of major highways or paved roads, we had a lot of. Gravel roads that went out into the country, and I figured I didn't want to get in a well-traveled place where somebody would see me, so I went on a gravel road, and I was testing out this car, man, and its power, and it was awesome.
And it was kind of dusty because of the dust. All of a sudden, I looked up, and some farmer in his farm truck was coming the other way. And he either didn't see me or he didn't care 'cause he took his half out of the middle. And the next thing I know, That wonderful Chrysler was in the ditch on the side of the road. The front of it was all messed in and wrinkled up and I was sick.
I knew I was in big trouble. And pretty soon, a farmer came along and he had a tractor, and he pulled me out.
Somehow, I got that car home. I think, if I remember right, I could only turn left. I had to keep turning because I couldn't turn the other way. I got the car home and I put it in the driveway. And then I had to wait.
Oh, the awesomeness of the weight. Would God he would have come home when I did, but several hours later, my father came home, and I'll never forget it. I was looking through the window in my bedroom watching. My dad walked on. And he just stood there like frozen for a few minutes, and then he walked in.
And he walked by me and he said, David, did you do that? I said, yes, sir, I did. I expected some bad things to happen. He didn't say a word. I'm not kidding you.
I was shocked. He didn't say a word. He just shook his head. and walked into the bedroom. left me sitting there.
He didn't say a word at dinner. He didn't say a word of breakfast. At lunch. at dinner the next night. Two days passed, not a word.
Suddenly it hit me. This is my fault.
So I went to his office. He was the president of the college there. And I knocked on the door and he looked, he was kind of surprised. I said, can I talk with you? He said, Yeah, I said, Dad, I'm really sick about what I did.
I was deceitful. And I was wrong, and I know we don't have the money to be dealing with this. And I disappointed you, and I ruined our trust. And I guess what I want to say is I'm sorry and will you forgive me? He got up and came around from the desk and put his arms around me and hugged me and he said, David, you are forgiven.
And you will pay for the car.
Now, the question I want to ask you is this. When I was experiencing the silence of those days, Was I still my father's son? Was I? He may have had thoughts about that, but was I? Was I still, I mean, judicially, was I my father's son?
Was I? I was judicially forgiven. But was I relationally forgiven? No. And what I had to do is go and get it right now.
Here's what Jesus is saying: listen up. He's saying If we as believers don't deal with the forgiveness issues in our lives with other people, We will not be able to go to God and receive the relational forgiveness that we seek. when we get our feet dirty walking on this earth, it will get in the way. It will be very hard for us to say, Lord, forgive me for what I've done, because immediately we'd be reminded of those who are seeking that same thing from us. God wants us to take His forgiveness given to us and pass it out.
to those who need it. in our lives. Then Lewis Smead says, Jesus grabs the hardest trick in the bag. Forgiving, and he says we have to perform it, or we're out in the cold. way out in the boondocks of the unforgiven cold.
He makes us feel like the miller's daughter who was told that if she didn't spin gold out of a pile of straw before morning she would lose her head. And no rumpled still skin is going to come and spin forgiving out of our straw hearts. And Jesus is tough on us. Because Jesus knows He knows. that it is a matter of incongruity.
to receive his forgiveness and not offer it to others.
So the only way you can heal the pain of the hurt That will not heal itself is to forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiving stops the reruns, have you noticed? Forgiving heals your memory and changes your memory's vision. When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your life. You set a prisoner free, and then you discover the prisoner you set free was you.
American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr saw this after World War II and he said, we must finally be reconciled with our foe, lest we both perish in the vicious circle of hatred. End of quote.
So you say, Pastor Jeremiah, that's great, and I understand what you're saying, but how does this work? How do we go about doing this? I just want to say three or four things to you. That I think are helpful. There are four stages.
Basically. that you go through. First of all, when you're trying to figure out how to deal with forgiveness and the act of forgiveness, the first stage you go through is the stage of hurt, isn't it? I mean, it hurts. When somebody causes you pain so deep and unfair that you cannot forget it, you are pushed into the stage.
of hurting stage number one of forgiveness. Because you see, if you don't hurt, you can't really deal with forgiveness. How many of you know people that are flippant in their forgiveness? I forgive you. I forgive you.
They don't know what forgiveness is all about. It's just kind of a. You know, a vocal pause. But forgiveness starts with the feeling of the pain. And then after hurt, I'll be honest, comes hatred.
You cannot shake the memory of how much you were hurt. And you cannot wish your memory well, and you sometimes want the person who hurt you to suffer like you are suffering. And whether you like to admit it or not, as a Christian, you go through the process of hate. And you start making up speeches you'd like to give if you have the chance. And you construct little scenarios where they're walking along the highway on a dark night, and you're driving along, and no one's around, and there's your chance.
I mean, you know what I'm talking about. You go through this whole thing: hatred. And then comes stage three. Healing. You're given As someone said, the magic eyes took to see the person who hurt you in a whole new light.
your memory is healed, and you turn back the flow of pain. and you're free and you say, I feel the hurt. I've experienced the hate, but by the grace of God, I forgive. And then the last stage is the coming together again. And sometimes that person gets back into your life.
Sometimes that person can't come back into your life, and you have to be healed all by yourself. But that's the process. And that's what Jesus is teaching. He's saying Every day when you pray. Pray like this.
Forgive us our debts, Lord. as we forgive our debtors. Lord. as we forgive those who have heard us. We accept the forgiveness you have offered to us.
Remember, I said there were four things. We forgive because we have been forgiven. We forgive just as we have been forgiven. You remember that? And I didn't give you the fourth one.
The fourth one is we forgive. before we need to be forgiven. And I never thought about that before, but if we pray this prayer every day, isn't that true? Every day we get up and we pray, Lord. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
On earth as it is in heaven. Lord, give us this day our daily bread. You know we need our daily bread, Lord. And Lord, Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Present tense, Lord.
Sometime today, Somebody's going to do something. that will be mean and nasty and hurtful. Create within me a forgiving heart, a forgiving spirit. And then try this one on. You walk out of your PER closet and you're not out on the highway very long before somebody does it.
I mean, they do it. And they look at you, and before they can speak, you say, I've already forgiven you. You what? Yes, I did it this morning. You did what?
When I was praying this morning before I got out on the highway, I forgave you. I didn't do it until five minutes ago, I know, but I forgave you ahead of time. You're weird. But can you imagine that? Can you imagine just kind of every day creating within yourself that kind of a spirit?
forgiveness before you need to be forgiven, before you need to offer it. Jesus said that those who live by God's forgiveness must imitate it. and that our only hope is that we will come to grips with this truth. that we cannot hold the faults against others when our faults have not been held against us. Our forgiveness is conditioned.
Upon the forgiveness. that we have received. It is very seldom that a poet captures the essence of a passage of scripture. I think they used to write poetry like that a lot more in days past than we do now. But of all the passages I have taught, Here is a poetic Reminder.
that is very close to the heart of its truth. Forgive our sins as we forgive. You taught us, Lord, to pray. But you alone can grant us grace To live the words we say. How can your pardon reach and bless the unforgiving heart?
that broods on wrongs and will not let old bitterness depart. In blazing light Your cross reveals the truth we dimly knew. How small the debts men owe to us How great. Our debt. to you.
That's it. The secret, the real secret of forgiving others is the cross of Jesus Christ. Whenever you're feeling like it's too big, too hard, too tough, too awful to forgive. Go to the cross. And remember.
That there was a day in order that we might be forgiven, that the Son of God hung there. between heaven and earth, and poured out His life's blood for us and forgave us. Of all Our debts. And now in the light of that, and in the power of that, and in the spirit of that. we can turn to others and say, You are forgiven.
I forgive you. And the secret to it is to remember how much we have been forgiven by God. and out of that reservoir, forgive others. And that's what the Bible teaches: as we have been forgiven, so we should forgive. And maybe you've been harboring.
Something against someone, and you just can't let go of it. You know, some people get so involved in this it becomes their whole life, and the thought of getting rid of it by asking for forgiveness or forgiving. is intolerable because then what do I live for? You have to take the step of faith and trust God to help you do that. But forgiveness, oh my friends, it's everything.
And you don't want to miss out on what we've been teaching these last two lessons. When we meet together tomorrow, we're going to talk about prayer and protection. And that will be interesting. I hope you'll join us then as we continue our discussion of Prayer, the Great Adventure. I'm David Jeremiah.
It's my privilege to be with you every day, and I hope you'll be with us tomorrow as we continue our journey. In Jesus' name. Thank you for listening. The message you've just heard came to you from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor Dr. David Jeremiah.
Has the Lord been moving in your life through this ministry? Tell us how at Turning Point P.O. Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. Visit our website at davidjeremiah.org/slash radio or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book for strengthening your prayer life.
everything to God in prayer. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also download the free Turning Point mobile app for your smartphone or tablet, or search in your app store for Turning Point Ministries to access our content. Visit davidjeremiah.org slash radio for details. This is David Michael Jeremiah.
Join us tomorrow as we continue the series Prayer the Great Adventure on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
