Forgive Others Or God Won't Forgive You

Good morning, Greenwood Christian. It's great to be with you this morning. So glad you're here. Jesus once had a conversation with his disciples where they asked him a question. They asked him to teach them how to pray.

And so Jesus taught his disciples this template for prayer. I'm going to put it up on the screen here. Just ask, would you read these words out loud with me? Jesus said, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. We typically call that what? That's the Lord's Prayer. And it's one of those passages of scripture that for many people, even those who don't know the Bible really, really well, these are probably familiar words.

It's not a script, it's not a formula. It's not something Jesus intended that we would memorize and just recite verbatim. What it is, is an example of the heart posture that God desires from us as we pray that we would lean into God as our loving father, that we would worship him as holy, that we would seek his will above our own, that we would trust him for our daily needs and ask his forgiveness for our sins, and that we would seek his help in avoiding temptation and sin. But there's one piece of the Lord's Prayer that is especially easy to gloss over, and it's found in Matthew 6:12. Jesus said, Forgive us our debts and don't miss this next part as we also have forgiven our debtors.

See, knowing that we are inherently sinful people, Jesus taught us to seek God's forgiveness. And he intended and he assumed that as we receive God's grace and forgiveness for our sins, we're also going to extend forgiveness to those who sin against us. So in the Gospel of Matthew, as Jesus teaches this model prayer, what comes after, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one is not for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. That's a church tradition that was added many years later. What Jesus actually said next was, for if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. See, sometimes the smallest words pack the biggest punch. Those two verses hinge on two occurrences of the two letter word. If. Let's look at those verses together again and this time let Me call specific attention to that word.

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. That's pretty straightforward, isn't it? If we won't forgive others, God won't forgive us. Our forgiveness of others and God's forgiveness of us are inseparably intertwined.

Even if we believe in Jesus, even if we ask God to forgive us, even if we've been baptized, unforgiveness toward others is a forgiveness blocker in our relationship with God. In other words, following Jesus means forgiving others with the same grace he shows us. Now, the theme of forgiveness is all over the Bible, and it's such a pervasive concept that there are actually multiple biblical words that are all translated forgive in English. And we can learn a lot about forgiveness just by unpacking some of these word pictures that we find in Scripture. So this morning, I want to take you on a quick tour of five biblical word pictures of forgiveness.

Word picture number one is the word pardon. This is a frequent translation of the Hebrew word selak. Okay. We often think of pardon as a political word, like President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal, or President Clinton's pardon of his brother Roger's drug conviction, or President Trump's pardon of those convicted in the January 6 Capitol riot. It's important for us to understand that a presidential pardon is not a declaration of innocence.

It simply frees someone from legal consequences. These types of pardons are often controversial, right, because in many people's minds, they're political favors that ignore actual justice. But the biblical sense of pardon is very different. God's holiness, God's justice, require that every sin be punished so God doesn't just remove consequences. In God's kingdom, pardon is possible only because a sacrifice has been offered.

God spoke these words through the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt because they broke my covenant. This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel. After that time, declares the Lord, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor or say to one another, know the Lord, because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive, I will pardon their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. Now, those prophetic words from Jeremiah anticipated the coming of Jesus. God's plan from the very beginning has always been to pardon his people's sins only after Jesus at the cross paid for those sins once and for all. And this first word picture about forgiveness is very closely related to the second one, which is the word carry.

Now, this is an English translation of the Hebrew word naysay. And naysay has gotten a lot of press lately because it was printed in huge letters on the Artemis II rocket. Did you notice that? Naysay, naysay, naysay. Forgiveness is a big deal when it comes to aerospace for some reason.

But naysay is used over 600 times in the Old Testament. We find it in Psalm 32, which says, Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, literally, whose sins are carried away, whose sins are covered. Leviticus chapter 16 describes the day of Atonement, which shows up as Yom Kippur on our modern calendars. But it's a day we recently talked about. On Good Friday, just a few weeks ago, Israel's annual day of atonement involved five animals.

There was a bull and two rams and two male goats. The bull and both of the rams and one of the goats were sacrificed by the priest and offered to God for Israel's sins. But the other goat was different. The other goat, the high priest would place his hands on that animal's head. Head.

And he would confess the nation's sins over that animal. And then that goat was released alive into the desert, symbolically carrying away all of the people's sins, never to return. That's actually where the term scapegoat comes from. And that image of a nation's sins being carried away by an animal helps us to understand why John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The apostle Paul conveyed a very similar idea when he wrote that God made him who had no sin, Jesus, to be sin, to bear our sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The prophet Isaiah also used imagery of Jesus carrying our sins away. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He bore the sin of many.

See, the big picture story of Scripture is that Jesus took all of our sins on himself. He carried them to the cross and he experienced the separation from God, the that we deserve. Now, the remaining three word pictures come from the New Testament and they start with this one. It's the idea of releasing something to release. This is the Greek word apoluo.

Jesus said in Luke chapter six, do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive. Release others from guilt and you will be forgiven. You will be released from guilt.

Now, besides forgiveness, the word apoluo is sometimes used to convey the healing or the releasing of a person from disease. It's sometimes used in reference to a husband releasing his wife through divorce. It's also used in reference to the release of prisoners from captivity. You know, when the Roman governor Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified, Scripture tells us that he also apoluod, he released another man, a criminal by the name of Barabbas. And Apoluo carries this image that both the guilt that we bear and the grudges that we carry are like a prison.

Unforgiveness is a form of captivity. Anger and bitterness are a self imposed prison sentence. When I was in second grade, my family moved to rural Oklahoma. And I had to ride about an hour one way to school every day. We were a long way from our school, and on those long bus rides, I met a really nice kid named Mike, who quickly became my best friend.

Now, before I had arrived on the scene, Mike had another friend, a kid whose name was Vernie. And. And Vernie became very jealous of the friendship that I had with Mike. So one day in gym class, we're playing football because, yes, in Adair, Oklahoma, for gym class, we don't play Red Light, Green Light, or Duck Duck Goose. We play football.

And so I'm out there running down the field, not even carrying the football, mind you. And Vernie stuck his leg out and he tripped me and I fell flat on my face, hard. And what made matters worse was Vernie's nickname. Vernie's friends called him Bubby. It's bad enough to get knocked down by anyone, but I got taken out by a Bubby.

That was just a. That was a big blow to my ego. So I went down hard and I was surprised and I was angry, but the moment my face hit the dirt, I remembered the words of Jesus that Cody shared with us last week. And I felt a sudden urge to pray for Vernie. Actually, I wish that were true.

In reality, all I could think about was payback. So for the rest of that game. I was looking for an opportunity to stick my leg out and serve Bubby a dirt sandwich in return. And he saw what I was up to, so he kept his distance from me. And I never got the chance.

But the rest of that game for me was not about football. It wasn't fun. All I could think about was getting even. It reminds me of a song from years ago. An artist by the name of Kenny Marks recorded a song called the Prisoner, and it tells the story of a man who is just consumed with bitterness after being dumped by the love of his life.

Listen to these lyrics from that song. Bitter feelings, suffocation, captive of your hate fixation Cutting off your circulation so you throw your life away. You keep holding on with sweet revenge and all your hate makes you the prisoner. Yes, you're the prisoner. Take a look at the Savior's face.

Take a look at incarnate grace. Put yourself in the Savior's place. Let her go, let her go. Because you're the one who's the prisoner till you're the one who's forgiven her.

You know, until this week, I hadn't thought for a long time about that day that Vernie tripped me. I don't remember exactly when I forgave him, but it wasn't because he apologized. You know, there are people who hurt us without even realizing that they're doing it. But there are others, right, who do it on purpose, and they don't care. But no matter the circumstances, intentional or not, if.

If we refuse to forgive until that other person comes around and says they're sorry, we're going to spend a big chunk of our lives locked inside a prison cell of unforgiveness. And that brings us to a fourth word picture of forgiveness. And that is the word cancel. This is the Greek word atheyemi, and it's a word that usually refers to forgiving a financial debt in Matthew, chapter 18. Because he saw how often people do the same things over and over and over again, Peter asked Jesus, lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?

Up to seven times. You know, Peter, I kind of suspect as he asked this question, he probably thought he was being incredibly generous by offering to give someone seven different doses of forgiveness. But Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but 77 times. Some Bible translations say 70 times seven. We probably prefer 77 times because that's 413 less than 490.

But if we make this about math, we totally miss the point. Okay? The point is that limited forgiveness isn't really forgiveness. Qualified forgiveness. Forgiveness with caveats really isn't forgiveness.

And Jesus illustrated that principle by telling a story. Once upon a time, there was a king who wanted to settle accounts with some servants who owed him money. And a man who owed him a fortune was brought in. Now, we don't know how this guy came to be so deeply indebted to the king. Had he embezzled money?

Did he make a terrible investment with the king's wealth? Did he have a gambling problem? We have no idea. But whatever the reason, the man could not afford to pay back this enormous debt. So the king demanded that he and his family and everything he owned be sold to repay the debt.

But this servant fell on his knees and he begged for mercy, and he promised to pay back everything he owed. And the king felt sorry for him, and he canceled his debt and let him go. Well, as Jesus story goes on, this man left the palace suddenly debt free. And on the way out, he runs into a co worker who owes him a few bucks. And he grabs the guy by the throat and he demands his money back.

And this guy fell on his knees and he begged for mercy, and he promised to pay back everything he owed, but the first servant refused and. And he had this co worker, over a few bucks, thrown into prison until he could pay back what he owed. And Jesus said there were some other servants who witnessed this whole thing go down, and they reported it. So the king sent for the man whose enormous debt he had canceled. And the king rebuked the man for his lack of mercy.

And he had him thrown into prison until he could fully repay his original debt. And Jesus didn't leave the point of his story open to speculation. He said this. This is how my Heavenly Father will treat each of you unless. Unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.

We cannot live in God's forgiveness without also forgiving others. Refusing to forgive is simply not an option for a disciple of Jesus. Now, if you're keeping track, you know we have one word picture left. But before we get to that final word picture, I think it's important that we hit pause for just a moment and clarify something. Okay?

I don't know your story. I don't know how you've been wronged. I don't know what kinds of pain you've endured. But it's possible that at this very moment, you're picturing someone's face, or you're remembering a painful, traumatic experience, or perhaps several of them, and you're thinking that I am an incredibly insensitive jerk for even suggesting forgiveness. And if that's going through your mind at all, could I ask you just to allow me to clarify for a moment what forgiveness is not?

For starters, forgiveness is not denying that you've been hurt. Many of our hurts, the things that people have done to us are very real. Forgiveness is not saying that what's been done to you was okay. Some of us have been wronged or abused in ways that are indefensible and inexcusable. Forgiveness is not saying that those hurts shouldn't bother you.

The truth is, if we are devoted to what is good and right and true, then what's wrong will be saddening and disappointing to us. Forgiveness is not insisting that there shouldn't be consequences for illegal behavior. You know, there's no sin that God can't forgive. But there are people who, even if they repent and receive God's forgiveness, probably shouldn't be allowed access to children or to guns. See, forgiveness is not about minimizing the wrong that's been done.

It's not about explaining that away or making light of it. It is about focusing on something that is so much bigger than. And that brings us to word picture number five, which is the word grant. This is the Greek word charizomai. Okay, Charizomai comes from the Greek word charis, which has to do with undeserved kindness and is often translated grace.

It's where we get the English word charisma. And it's used by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 4, where he wrote, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving, granting kindness and compassion to each other. Just as in Christ, God forgave, God granted kindness and compassion to. You see, God's forgiveness of us is all about his love and his generosity, not how big or how little we think our sins are. And our forgiveness of others is based on God's generosity with us, not how major or minor we think their sins are.

See, God commands us to forgive others not because they deserve it, not because their sins are relatively minor, not because we decide, you know what? It doesn't really bother me. And not even because they ask us to. God commands us to forgive others because that is exactly what he does for us. So here's today's entire message in a single sentence.

Following Jesus means forgiving others with the same grace he shows us. Would you say that with me? Following Jesus means forgiving others with the same grace he shows us. Back in 1986, a 29 year old New York City police officer named Stephen McDonald was paralyzed from the neck down after taking three bullets in the head from a gun fired by a teenager named Shavad Jones. Now, Shavad Jones went to prison, and Officer McDonald forgave him.

Stephen McDonald began to speak at schools. And at one particular school assembly, he was asked by a student, how could you forgive someone who hurt you so badly? And this is what Stephen McDonald said. He said, when I was shot, I was dying, and my family and I said all sorts of prayers. I wanted to be forgiven then for my sins, and if I was to be forgiven by God, I had to forgive Shabbat Jones.

That's exactly what Jesus taught. For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. Now, we've covered a lot of ground today, and this is heavy stuff, right? This is heavy, heavy stuff.

But in light of what Jesus teaches about the connection between God's forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of others, there are two, two challenges I think I need to lay out in front of all of us. And here's the first challenge. Number one. This challenge exists every moment, every day, is to come to Jesus for forgiveness. You know, not only have we all been wronged by others, I know we've all been hurt, we've all been wounded in different ways by other people.

But we have also wronged others ourselves, every single one of us. None of us measure up to God's holiness. And yet he loves us so much that he put on flesh. And he died in our place for our sins. And he rose from the dead as proof that his payment for our sins had been accepted.

And when we admit our sinfulness, when we put our trust in Jesus sacrifice, everything changes. The Apostle John wrote that if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. The minute I say I'm not a sinner, I'm a liar. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. I love the way David described God's forgiveness in Psalm 103.

As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. When God forgives us, he forgives us completely, infinitely, without limit. Confessing our sins and asking God to cleanse us is actually a big part of what baptism symbolizes. Every time we celebrate a baptism, we are celebrating someone's declaration that I am a sinner. God, I have sinned against you, I have sinned against other people.

And I need what Jesus did in my place at the cross to cleanse me. Would you forgive me? Would you wash me? Would you take my sins away? Is it time for you to come to Jesus for forgiveness?

That is a crucial step in our journey with God. But I don't want to stop there. Because as we've seen today, receiving God's forgiveness also carries with it a responsibility to extend forgiveness to others. We cannot experience God's forgiveness while we are living in an attitude of unforgiveness. To follow Jesus is to let go of bitterness and resentment toward those who hurt us, embarrass us, insult us, mistreat us, humiliate us, or trip us during a third grade football game.

It doesn't mean we become best friends with them, doesn't mean we start vacationing together, or that we condone what they did. It simply means that in light of the way God has forgiven us, we refuse to live in a prison of hatred and bitterness. Is there someone that you need to forgive so that you can be free? If you're carrying around bitterness and unforgiveness about something that happened to you a long time ago, the other person, the perpetrator, is not the one suffering. You are.

You are living in a prison of your own making. And we all need forgiveness. We need to receive it and we need to offer it. And we have an opportunity to reflect on that as we move together into a time of communion. Right before Jesus went to the cross for our sins, he shared a meal with his disciples.

And Matthew chapter 26 tells us that while they were eating, Jesus took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, take and eat. This is my body. Then he took a cup and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Down here at the front of the room and along the back wall are some tables where you'll find double stacked plastic cups.

That bottom cup contains bread that represents Jesus body that was nailed to the cross in our place for our sins. And that top cup contains grape juice that is a symbol of Jesus blood that was poured out for the forgiveness of our sins. I'm going to lead us in prayer in just a moment. And then after we pray, as we eat the bread and as we drink the juice, we're going to have the opportunity to remember Jesus who died so that we could be forgiven. And as we remember the price that Jesus paid to forgive us.

Since forgiving others is a part of following Jesus, since following Jesus means forgiving others with the same grace he shows us, I want to encourage you to also use this time to ask God if there is someone in your life that you need to forgive. Is there someone for whom you feel such resentment that you are still living today, maybe even many years removed, in a prison cell of hatred and bitterness and unforgiveness? God is capable of forgiving our sins and his Holy Spirit is capable of helping us to release some of the biggest hurts that we still carry. Let's use this time together to ask God to guide us. Would you pray with me, Lord God, we're grateful this morning that we come to you with your invitation to be forgiven.

Not because we deserve that, not because the wrong that we've done is comparatively minor when we set it next to someone else's.

But Father, because your grace is so vast and so generous, God, we're thankful that you give us the opportunity to be a part of your family, that you adopt us as your children again, not because we deserve that, but because you are good and kind and loving. And Father, because you have personally paid for, you have personally sacrificed in order to wipe our sins out of the picture and allow us to come to you. We ask, Lord, that your forgiveness would not only penetrate our hearts in the sense that we receive it, but, God, that you would also use us to extend that grace and that forgiveness to the people in our lives who have hurt us in a variety of different ways. Lord, help us to experience the freedom of forgiveness, both in the sense that we give our guilt to you and in the sense that we give our grudges to you. And we're so grateful, Father, for your love and kindness, for your selflessness at the cross that makes that possible.

Lord, we love you. We thank you for your amazing love for us. And it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Let's share communion together.