I Am Forgiving

- God's Guide to God is our message series here at Twin Lakes Church. My name is Adrian, one of the pastors here. Thank you so much for joining us here live or if you're on the live stream. So glad to be here together. It's been a while since I've spoken. So usually what I like to do is give you a little family update. We were on vacation just a few weeks ago, and here's a picture of us at a very happy place. That's me on the left, just in case you weren't sure. And in the middle is Ella, she is our 10-year-old, and she just started the fifth grade, which today she was like, "Why is this fifth grade so hard?" I'm like, "I'm sorry. Why do we have homework on the weekends?" I'm like, "Because that's your teacher. I'm sorry." Don't blame me. Blame her. Penelope is our eight-year-old or is just about to turn eight. She turns eight at the end of next month, and she just started the second grade. My wife, Jamie, and I just celebrated just a couple weeks ago our 16th wedding anniversary. And oh yeah, thank you. We did it. We're still here.

But you know, one of my favorite things about traveling, going on vacation is eating. Like eating at new places. If you spend any time with me, you'll know like soon our conversation is going to get to like food because I love eating and I love trying all new types of food. So much so that a few years ago, a really close friend of mine and I, we went on a food trip for four days. We flew to Las Vegas. We flew to LA. We went up to Napa and San Francisco and we just ate so much food. It was an amazing experience. I texted him the other day because it was the anniversary of this one day. I remember we ate at eight restaurants that day. I have never been that full, nor do I ever want to be that full again, but it was still fun.

But I love food. I love to try new foods and it's something that I really want to instill into my kids. I want them to share in that like love I have for new food experiences. And really what I want is when they're served food by someone that they accept it. They graciously accept it from the person and taste it. Try it like a real big bite and swallow it and appreciate it. And not just ask, are there chicken nuggets here? But just try whatever you get because, you know, my kids represent me. And I want them to reflect the things that I value. I mean, if I'm really honest, what I want is for other people to see my kids and be like, wow, whose parents are raised such gracious, diverse, cultural, like eating, accepting kids. They must be amazing. Yes, we are. And so that is like my hope for them.

You know, that's kind of how God feels about us. He wants us to reflect who he is and what he cares about. And that's what this series has all been about. God's guide to God. We've been looking at Exodus 34:6–7, where God describes himself to us. And what we've done each week is look at a specific characteristic of God that he describes, that he reveals, and then how we should kind of reflect that in our own lives, because we are his children. And the characteristic we're looking at today. God's attribute today is so important, so vital, so much. So this is what Jesus says about this specific characteristic. If you don't understand it and you don't reflect it, you shouldn't bother calling yourself a child of God. I'm like, okay, that's intense, Jesus. Do you want to know what this characteristic is? Would you like to learn how to reflect it? I know I do. So let's jump right in.

We're going to read our passage today. Exodus chapter 34, starting in verse six, says this, "And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation." What I get to focus on is the end of the first verse. End of verse six, the end of that last sentence where it says, God is forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Grab your message notes that you were handed when you came in, or you can download them at TLC.org/notes.

Today we're looking at the statement, I am forgiving. And I have to say a big thanks to Pastor Brian Larritz. A message I heard from him at Mount Hermon really influenced me and inspired me for today's message. And I want to give you one of your real quick like peek behind the scenes about preaching here at Tone Lakes Church. Well, a lot of us different preachers have been teaching. Sarah's here, Mark was here last week, and we all were on this email list. We all knew what we were talking about. I knew I was going to be talking about forgiving for a few weeks. So to my surprise, as I sat in that pew last week, listening to Mark talk about God's faithfulness, then halfway through he started talking about God's forgiveness. And I was like, that's my subject, Mark.

And then I thought, well, at least, okay, you can talk about, you know, God's forgiving. Of course, we can talk about it multiple weeks, but I'll do the word study what the Hebrew word for forgiving is. And of course, he then does it last week. And so last week we learned that the Hebrew word for forgiving is nasa, to lift up, carry, take away. It's a picture of what God does with our sins. He carries them. I thought, okay, thanks a lot, Mark. Okay, well, this at least I'll use 1 Peter to talk about how nasa points to what Jesus would do. And oh, yep, exactly what I was going to do, he starts to do. He quotes the exact verse I would quote, which is right here. "He himself bore our sins or carried, forgave our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed." So listen, church, for an in-depth look at forgiveness, you can go to TLC.org and search Mark Spurlock sermon spoiler, and you'll find last week's sermon and learn all about forgiveness.

Mark's not here, so I can just say whatever I want. He's probably not watching. But I was like, okay, well, now what do I do? So what we're going to do today, we're going to go in a different direction a little bit, and we're going to spend the rest of our time in the New Testament. We're going to go all the way forward to the gospels. And today we're going to spend our time in Matthew chapter 18. And in this chapter, Jesus is talking to the disciples about forgiveness. And he's talking to them about this. And then the disciple Peter, he loves to just speak up. You know, I love Peter. He's very concerned. You know, okay, we're talking about forgiveness. But what does that mean for me? So he asks Jesus, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?" And this is what Jesus, or he goes on to say up to seven times. Jesus answered, "I tell you not seven times, but 77 times." What Jesus is doing here, basically, he's not telling you exactly the number, but what he is saying, he's just exaggerating. He's saying, there is no end to your forgiveness. There shouldn't be any end to it. And his response is, when you should forgive your brother is every time.

And so when he says this to Peter and the other disciples, he knows that they're like, wait, I'm supposed to forgive as many times as somebody sins against me. What are you talking about? So he tells them a story, you know, because they were like us, we're like little children. So to explain this, let me tell you a story, kids. And so in verse 23, he tells us a parable. "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 10,000 talents. 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. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, 'Have patience with me and I will pay you everything.' And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.

You know, like Peter so many times, like we come to church and we learn about something about God and what's going through our mind is, well, what does that mean for me? What do I have to do? And what Jesus does in this story is he answers the question, if you want to know about forgiveness, you need to start with God's forgiveness. So he paints us this beautiful picture of God's forgiveness. God is this king who forgives the debt, this huge debt of the servant, which is us. How big is his debt? 10,000 talents. How much is that? Now, if you read, you know, commentaries, you know, ask a scholar, they'll try to do the calculations, what that was back then, what that means today with inflation and blah, blah, blah. The problem with that is people today have a lot more money than they did back then. If you were to like do the math, it's like billions of dollars. But there are people today who can pay, you know, they're going to space and selling us electric cars. They got billions of dollars. So Jesus isn't saying, do you have enough money to pay this debt? Basically what he's saying, because at that time, 10,000 talents is more money than anybody could ever think of. Think of the word zillion. This is a zillion dollars. This is more money than anybody could pay in a hundred lifetimes. And so the point is that this servant could not pay this debt on his own.

And so this leads to the first step of understanding God's forgiveness is this. You need to acknowledge your debt. You know, when the servant acknowledges his huge debt, then he asks the king for mercy when he realizes the enormity of his debt. He asks for mercy. That debt is not cleared until he asks for forgiveness. And this is the thing. Some of us need to remember that we have a debt problem. And that debt is called sin and we cannot pay it on our own. You know, the Bible tells us that all have sinned. Every single person has sinned. We all fall short of God's standard and the penalty, the price of that sin, that debt is death. And the only way that debt is forgiven is through Jesus's death on the cross. When he carried our sin, like it says in 1 Peter, right? He personally carried, he forgave our sins in his body. We acknowledge this massive debt that we have because of our sin that we cannot pay. And we remember that God's forgiveness for us is free. It is a free gift and all we have to do is reach out and accept it.

It's like David wrote in Psalm 32, watch this. He says, "I acknowledge my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin." So we need to acknowledge we have sin. Acknowledge our debt and know that God forgives us freely. But you know what? You know, while some of us need to remember that, there are others of us who have no problem acknowledging we have sin. You are weighed down and you are full of guilt and shame because of the sins in your life or your past. You might think, there are too many sins. I've done way too much. My debt is too big. And that brings me to our second step in understanding God's forgiveness is to remember God's forgiveness pays it all. How much of that 10,000 talent debt did the king forgive? All of it. And that's what God does for you.

You know, Mark did that word study last week, but there are some other words I can define. So he's not gonna rob me of studying the original language. So I'm gonna define some terms. Does that work? In Exodus, it says God is forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. The Hebrew word for wickedness is Avon, which means any kind of bad behavior. It's kind of like anything bad. Think of like cheating on a test to genocide. It covers anything. Okay. And if that wasn't enough, he uses the word rebellion, which is the word Pesha, which is to break the law. This is a legal term. It is a crime, a violation. I think of it this way. God gives us a standard to live by or the things that we're supposed to do. And we say, I see that and I'm gonna do something else. We don't listen. We go our own way. We rebel. And the last word he uses here is for sin is Hataa, which is to miss the mark. And this is a kind of a word picture. You think of an archer pulling the bow, releasing that arrow, going towards the target, and it misses the bullseye. That's what this word means. Missing the mark, falling short of a standard. And it's not really a, it wasn't a moral term in those days. It just meant messing up. So he uses wickedness, rebellion, and sin to just kind of remind us he covers it all.

John Mark Comer in the book, God has a name that we've been reading alongside this series, puts it this way. These words joined together to cover the full breadth of human pollution. But the point here isn't to lay on a guilt trip. It's that Yahweh is forgiving of sins of all shapes and sizes. So forgiveness grows out of God's name, his character. It flows from Yahweh's inner essence, the deepest, truest parts of his being. He pays all of it because it's who he is. He wants to forgive. He's not up there itching to strike us down. He's up there itching to forgive you. So you can rejoice in his forgiveness. David puts it so well in Psalm 103. He says this, "Let all that I am, praise the Lord. May I never forget the good things he does for me." Including what? He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. God forgives and pays it all.

So Jesus paints this beautiful picture of God's forgiveness. Now let's see, what does this forgiven servant do? How does he respond to this gracious forgiveness? Continuing in verse 28, "But when that same servant went out, 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.'" Sounds a little familiar, right? "He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt." Can you believe this guy? He was just forgiven this massive debt and he finds somebody who owes him a little bit and he starts to choke him out. And so to drive that home, Jesus uses these numbers. He compares these two debts, 10,000 talents and 100 denarii. And the reason Jesus does this is to shock his listeners. To show them the vast, you know, gulf between these two debts.

Because check this out. We'll do some math. One talent equals 6,000 denarii. So if we calculate that times 10,000, that first servant, if you put it in denarii, owed 600 million denarii. That's the debt he was just forgiven. And now this guy comes to him with 100 denarii that he owes him and he starts to choke him out. You know what percentage or fraction of his debt that was? That was one 600,000th of what he owed. It's like he forgot this huge debt was forgiven. What Jesus is saying is you should forgive because you have been forgiven. But if we're honest, it's hard to do, right? Forgiveness? You know, I can make fun of this servant, but forgiveness doesn't just come easily. And that brings me to the first thing about our own forgiveness is this. There is a cost to forgiveness.

You know, that king forgave that 10,000 talent debt, but that debt didn't just disappear. That king took it on. This 100 denarii that was owed to the servant, it's not like this imaginary thing. It is a real genuine debt. A 100 denarii actually was about a year's wages. What Jesus is saying is this. There are gonna be times in your life, there are gonna be people in your life who truly wrong you. Who are gonna do things to you that are not right and are not just and are not okay. And for, you know, if we're honest about who we are in our human nature, our first instinct isn't forgiveness, it's vengeance, right? Because that's the way the world works. That's what we've been taught. That's what, you know, we've seen over and over again. We fantasize about revenge. There is a movie series like out there called John Wick. It's very violent. It's crazy. And basically, I mean, let me tell you the plot. There is a guy and his dog, these people kill his dog. So he goes in return and kills like a thousand people because revenge. And this movie is so popular because people just wanna see, "I get those guys." 'Cause we wanna get those people.

Have you ever been wronged and they get away with it? What happens? You lose sleep thinking, "Oh, what I wish would happen to them. I don't know if I believe in karma, but right now, God, God, do you believe in karma? 'Cause let it happen to those people." You start to fantasize of like, "Oh, if this were to happen over, this is what I would have said to them. Or what would I do to them when I see them?" Jesus is telling us, "Respond like the king, like God. We forgive people even when we don't feel like it." Many of you know Corrie Ten Boom. She spent many years in a Nazi concentration camp. Her family, she was not Jewish. Her family was caught hiding Jews from the Nazis. And so she ended up, they got arrested, and she ended up going to Ravensbrück concentration camp or work camp with her sister, Betsy. While there, they led many, many people to Christ. Many became Christians because of the gospel that they shared because they smuggled in this Bible. But along with that amazing experience, she also experienced the horrors and the brutalities of the Nazis. And eventually, she'd witnessed the death of her beloved sister, Betsy.

Some time passed, she was eventually released, and she went on to live the rest of her life helping other Holocaust survivors and sharing her story, which included a lot about forgiveness. But one day, she was speaking at a church in Munich, Germany. And like she did many times, she mentioned this camp she was at, Ravensbrück. After she spoke, you know, she was down front, and a man comes down the aisle and yells, "Cory!" And she looks up and she recognizes him right away. He was one of the most vicious guards at the camp. He gets closer, "Cory, Freundland Cory!" Of course, he doesn't recognize her, so he says, "I was one of the guards at Ravensbrück, but I've become a Christian now. God has forgiven all my sins, all the things that I did, but I'd like to hear it from you, sister. Will you forgive me?" And he reaches out his hand to her. She says her first thought was this, "I can't." All she could see was the torture. All she could see was the brutality. All she could see was her dying sister. But she remembered that forgiveness is an act of the will. It's not an emotion. "Jesus, help me," she prayed. "I can lift my hand, but God, you need to supply the feeling." So she thrust out her hand and she grabbed his hand. Listen to what she writes. "And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raised down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. 'I forgive you, brother,' I cried with all my heart. For a long moment, we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner." Listen to this. "I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then. But even so, I realized it was not my love. I had tried and did not have the power. It was the power of the Holy Spirit."

Church, you don't need to feel it. You don't have the power on your own to forgive those who have wronged you, especially in such an intense way. What you need to do is just put out your hand and pray to God, "I can lift my hand." But God, you supply the feeling. And when we talk about forgiveness, I'm compelled to say this. Not only do you not have to feel it, you don't have to fix it. Your forgiveness doesn't equal trust and reconciliation. Forgiveness isn't giving your debit card to somebody who stole all your money. 'Cause this is the thing, forgiveness takes one person, but reconciliation, that takes two. If you've been hurt, if you've experienced trauma, I'm not telling you that you have to pretend that it's all okay. Trust that has been broken needs to be earned, and that takes time. What Jesus is telling us is that we need to reach out our hands and forgive.

What happens to this unforgiving servant? 'Cause that's not what he did, right? Well, let's finish up the passage starting in verse 31. He says this, "When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 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.'" Some versions say the torturers until he should pay all his debt. "Now check this out. So also my heavenly father," Jesus speaking to us, "will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart." Okay, what's going on there, Jesus? It's intense. This is what's going on. The king realizes this guy doesn't get it. He didn't get what happened to him. He didn't realize what he was forgiven. He didn't really accept my forgiveness. If he would have, he would have forgiven his fellow servant. So what does the king do? He sends him to be tortured to pay off his debt. How long is that going to take? 10,000 towns, you remember how many years? Life, hundreds of lifetimes. That means forever.

Okay, so at first glance, when I read this, it's like, it could mean this. If you don't forgive, you're getting thrown into hell. Don't forgive your brother? Going to hell. Jesus' payment, you know, his death on the cross to pay for your sins? Forget it. That's kind of how it sounds. But that doesn't match what I know about God from scripture. When I read the whole of scripture, the story of God's love from Genesis to Revelation, what I see is that God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to live a perfect life on this earth, die on a cross for our sins, to pay the debt of our sins, resurrected him from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit, defeating death so we could have eternal life and have life abundant here on this earth, transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit. And the Bible says in Ephesians that our salvation has nothing to do with our own works. There's nothing you did to earn God's salvation. So that you can't try to boast about it. You can't be like, well, this is what I did, God, you should accept me. No, it's all about his grace, his mercy, his love. And I believe if you can't earn it, you can't un-earn it. So what is going on here? I think Jesus is telling us two things.

The first one is this, unforgiveness is torture. Unforgiveness is prison. When we are wrongs, we wanna respond like that servant, right? We wanna hold on to hate, we wanna hold on to resentment. And that sounds so satisfying, but it is just the opposite. Resentment, hate, unforgiveness will just eat away at your soul. Many of you know Nelson Mandela. He experienced the horrors of the apartheid in the Republic of South Africa. And he joined the resistance against the discrimination and the brutality of the racist government against black people. And he was thrown into jail for life. And he spent 27 years there. If anyone had reason to resent and hate, it was Mandela for what he had seen and what he had experienced and sitting in that jail cell. But he knew that it would just eat away at him if he just held on to that hate. Listen to what he says, a very famous quote of his, "Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemies." When you don't forgive, you imprison yourself.

And the second thing I think Jesus is telling us is this, and I heard Brian Larritt say this so well, the badge of the believer is forgiveness. The badge of the believer is forgiveness. If you don't forgive, you will be treated like that servant is what Jesus says. This is what I believe he's saying. Not only are you in a prison of your own making, but it is a sign that you haven't really truly received God's forgiveness. If you don't forgive, you're not a forgiven person. You know, Paul says this in Ephesians chapter four, he says, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you." Therefore, you are forgiven. Christ forgave you. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. We can forgive when we understand our own forgiveness, because when you are owed 100 denarii, you can remember the 10,000 talents that you've been forgiven.

You know, in a moment, we're going to respond to what we're hearing in song. We sing at the end of our service. So to prepare for that, I'm going to ask Trent to come out. And as he does, I'm going to end with a story. You know, Nelson Mandela, he would get released from prison after 27 years, and eventually, he'd go on to become the first elected black president of South Africa. But he had a huge problem on his hands. Decades of apartheid ripped that country to shreds and left it literally divided. So Nelson Mandela, it's his job to... That's what he was given, this country. So he's like, "We gotta fix this." He set up what's called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. You might have heard of it. In rooms like this, what would happen were people who perpetrated terrible things would come to this commission, and they would have to confess their wrongdoings or their sins to the people who they had wronged. And after that confession, they would do some work, and they would be granted amnesty or forgiveness.

I wanna read the true story of one of these confessions. "A frail black woman stands slowly to her feet. Facing her is a white security officer who begins his confession. He came to her home, took her son, shot him, and then burned the young man's body while he and his officers held a party. Then the guard returned sometime later to take her husband. And after two years of not knowing where her husband had been taken, she gets a knock on the door. That same guard then takes her. She's taken to a place where her husband, bound and beaten, but still strong in spirit, was lying on a pile of wood. Her husband's last words as the guard set him aflame, where father forgive them. He finished his confession, and a member of the commission asks the woman, 'So what do you want? How can justice be done to this man who has so brutally destroyed your family?' 'I want three things,' began the woman calmly but confidently. 'I want first to be taken to the place where my husband's body was burned so that I can gather the dust and give his remains a decent burial.' And she pauses and then continues, 'My husband and my son were my only family. I want secondly, therefore, for this man to become my son. I would like him to come to my home twice a month and spend time with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I have remaining. And finally, I want a third thing. I would like him to know that I offer him my forgiveness because Jesus Christ died to forgive. This was also the wish of my husband, and so I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take him in my arms, embrace him, and let him know he's truly forgiven.

As she walks across the room, the security officer, overwhelmed by what he has just heard, faints. And as he does, after he faints, the room is quiet, much like it is right now. And then friends, family, neighbors, who were all victims of decades of oppression and injustice, they began to fill the silence with their singing. They began to sing a song written so many years before by a slave trader. "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see." The way of the world is vengeance, but the badge of the believer is forgiveness. When we truly grasp the amazing grace of God towards us, when our eyes are open to the reality of what God has done through Jesus' death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, when he truly understands and our eyes are open to that, then we can follow the call of our forgiving Father and forgive those who wrong us.

Let's pray. You know, with your eyes closed and a message like this, I know there are possibly two groups of people. Maybe you're here today and you're here for the first time, or you've been coming for a while, but you've never truly understood or accepted the forgiveness of God for your sins. Maybe you've sat here every week to pay some kind of penance for all the sins in your life. Let me tell you, his forgiveness is free. All you need to do is ask for it and he will give it to you. If that's you, I want to invite you. You can accept his forgiveness right now. There is no special prayer or thing that you got to do. All you got to do is this. Acknowledge that you have a debt that you can't pay, and Jesus' death on the cross pays that debt. And his resurrection from the dead cancels out death. It defeats death so that you can spend eternity with God in heaven and be filled with his Holy Spirit and live an abundant life with him by your side here on earth. All you have to do is pray that in your heart and God forgives you and accepts you. You can become a child of God and I invite you to do that. If you're in this room or you're listening online.

But you also might be here and as we're speaking about forgiveness, you have a name in your mind. There's a person in your life that you have held on to that grudge and that hate and that resentment for far too long. It could be a former friend, it could be a family member, it could be a parent, it could be a child, it could be a spouse, it could be yourself. Holding on to that resentment only hurts you. You can be free. Just reach out your hand. And ask God to supply the feeling, the power to forgive. And I encourage you to do that. Doesn't mean you have to go and fix that relationship, but God does call us to forgive. Father, I pray for those Lord who might be accepting you for the first time, acknowledging their debt and accepting your forgiveness for their sins and your salvation. God, I celebrate and I worship you for your great love and grace and mercy. God, I pray for those who have forgiveness that they need to act upon. There's unforgiveness in their hearts, there's hate, there's resentment. God, I pray for healing. I pray for your power to help them forgive. We thank you God for your forgiveness. And it is out of that river, that ocean of forgiveness that we're able to just forgive our brothers and sisters and those who are on us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.