Cornerstone Church Palm Sunday - April 9, 2006
“Lord Teach Us To Pray Series”
“TO FORGIVE OR NOT TO FORGIVE?”
Matthew 6:12, 14-15
What image comes to your mind when you hear the word – Bounty Hunter?
If you are like me, I picture a loner - a Clint Eastwood type.
I remember the Bounty Hunter in Raising Arizona.
Leather Chaps
Broken Down Motorcycle
Unkempt hair / Hadn’t washed in months
Relentless focus – capturing the person you are after
Max Lucado in: The Great House of God talks about his bout with a Bounty Hunter.
“Living in the cross hairs of a hit man is no treat. I should know. I had one after me for three months. He wasn’t a Mafia member, nor was he a gang member. He didn’t carry a gun with a scope; his weapons were even deadlier. He had a phone number and a commission – track me down and make me pay.
His job? Collect past-due payments for a credit card company.
A good day for him means a bad day for everyone he contacts. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why such an occupation is necessary. I just wonder what kind of person would want such a job? Who wants to be a missionary of misery?
Can you imagine what their spouse says as they go to work? ‘Make’em squirm, honey.’ Do their bosses motivate them with the ‘blood out of a turnip’ award? Who is their hero? Godzilla? What a job. Their payday is your paycheck, and they are out to get it. Can you imagine spending your days like that?
Perhaps you can. Perhaps all of us can. Even the best among us spend time demanding payment. Doesn’t someone owe you something? An apology? A second chance? A fresh start? An explanation? A thank you? A childhood? A marriage? Stop and think about it (which I don’t encourage you to do for long), and you can make a list of a lot of folks who are in your debt. Your parents should have been more protective. Your children should have been more appreciative. Your spouse more sensitive. Your preacher should have been more attentive.
What are you going to do with those in your debt?”
Have you ever noticed in the western movies how the bounty hunter travels alone? Who wants to hang out with a guy who settles scores for a living? Cantankerous sorts, these bounty hunters. Best leave them alone. Hang out with the angry and you might catch a stray bullet. Debt-settling is a lonely occupation.
SO DO YOU WANT TO BE A BOUNTY HUNTER?
Maybe you have been riding the trail seeking to make someone pay!
Conceivably you are thinking to yourself – Pastor Rick – This doesn’t sound like a Palm Sunday Message.
Where are Palm Branches – The Hosannas – Jesus on the donkey?
I had those same thoughts!
But then, I thought of the following. This next section of the Lord’s Prayer is about our having a proper understanding of God’s forgiveness (This is the Easter Message).
“Jesus Christ came to pay a debt He did not owe,
because we owed a debt we could not pay.”
Greg Laurie
Harvest Christian Fellowship
When we have a proper understand of God’s forgiveness of us we will have a proper disposition of forgiveness towards those who do us wrong.
The next day after Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem and His rejection by the people he cursed the Fig Tree because it wasn’t producing fruit and then cleansed The Temple of the moneychangers.
What did Jesus say?
Matt 21:13 NIV “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’’”
This morning we are going to look at the second petition (in this middle section).
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Matt. 6:12 NIV
As I was studying for this message I discovered that the subject of forgiveness is one of the most needed topics in our world.
WHY?
Nations are at war with Nations
Neighbors are feuding with neighbors
Church members have conflicts with other church members
Spouses are fighting with one another and one marriage after another is being torn apart
Families are having upheavals and hostility as parents are angry with their children and children are incensed with their parents!
Turmoil, bitterness and the lack of forgiveness are just about everywhere!
As humans we have invented all sorts of inventions and solved all kinds of problems.
But we have yet to solve mankind’s greatest need and that is to be able to get along and place nice with other people!
Forgiveness, the word itself sounds like it must be associated with God in some way because it is not something that comes natural to us.
Selfishness and wanting to get our own way and our own rights is what comes natural from sinners!
So many in our society want and need to receive forgiveness. They are looking for some remedy for being weighed down and burdened down by guilt and sin!
They long to hear the words I love you and I forgive you.
While many want to receive forgiveness and absolution for the wrongs they have done almost everyone finds it hard, if not impossible, to forgive others who have wronged them in life!
When we have wronged others we want forgiveness to come quickly and easily!
When we have been wronged by someone we want justice to prevail and find it hard to forgive!
“Vengeance is a dish best served cold.”
Sicilian Proverb
JESUS TEACHES US TO PRAY:
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Matt. 6:12 NIV
When we hear these words we think to ourselves:
“Yea, right! Was he serious?”
Withholding forgiveness is our:
“ACE in the hole!”
It is our trump card!
Listen to the power and control people think they have by not forgiving individuals who hurt them.
Here are the words of a woman whose husband left her for another woman. Later he wanted her forgiveness for what he had done. But she wasn’t ready to let go of this trump card.
“‘I want you to go to hell,’ she replied. What? Forgive? Throw away the power she had – the strength of her hate, the energy of her contempt? Her contempt was her power, her dignity, her self-esteem. It was unfair to ask her to forgive. The least the louse deserved was the steady stream of her scorn.”
Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive and Forget, pg 166
Forgiveness is almost impossible if it were up to us in our flesh! Our dark heart desires to see those who hurt us suffer for the wrongs they inflicted on us!
Let them pay for what they did!
I hope they suffer greatly for how they treated me!
Bitterness sets in and it can strangulate the person’s heart! Grudges, conflicts and unforgiveness can set in for years!
Illustration:
Many of you have heard of the Hatfield – McCoy Feud! This happened in the 1880’s. The Hatfield Clan was from West Virginia and the McCoy Clan was from Kentucky. The feud lasted for a decade.
In the end as many as 100, men, women and children were killed!
Somewhere along the way a wrong was committed and the lack of forgiveness prevailed!
Satan is clever!
The sad truth about having an unforgiving heart is the one who refuses to forgive locks themselves in their own prison of horror and torturer!
You are deceived into thinking that your vengeance is hurting the other person! It can, but not as much as it is hurting you!
HERE IS SOME CONVENTIONAL WISDOM:
“I’ve had a few arguments with people,
but I never carry a grudge. You know why?
While you’re carrying a grudge, they’re out dancing.”
Comedian Buddy Hackett
Jesus is very serious about our need to pray and to daily ask for His forgiveness and to pray that we have a willing heart to forgive others who hurt us.
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Matt. 6:12 NIV
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS?
Is Jesus speaking about financial debts?
The word for “debts” is similar in meaning to an Aramaic word (hoba) that means:
“a moral or spiritual debt”
It is what we would call sin! Forgive us our sin as we forgive those who sin against us!
Debtors = “those who fail in their duty toward us”
Forgive = “to hurl or to send away.”
Let’s see if this is what Jesus is trying to communicate (Luke 11:4)!
Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive
everyone who sins against us.
Luke 11:4 NIV
But in case we missed it Jesus is crystal clear in Matthew 6:14-15:
Matt. 6:14-15 NIV For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Did you catch that last phrase?
But if you do not forgive men their sins,
your Father will not forgive your sins.
The lack of forgiveness causes us problems between ourselves and God!
DO WE EARN OUR SALVATION BY FORGIVING OTHERS?
IS FORGIVENESS A BAROMETER OF WHETHER
I’M A CHRISTIAN OR NOT?
I’ll try to answer those questions!
Peter was trying to figure this need to forgive others at another time with Jesus. Jesus illustrates clearly what He is trying to teach here in this text. Look at Matthew 18:21-35.
Peter asks Jesus a question:
Matt. 18:21 NIV Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Peter is trying to be generous with his forgiveness.
The Rabbis taught that you should forgive an individual three times.
Probably an ancient version of 3 strikes and your out!
So Peter doubled that and added another one for good measure!
Jesus’ answer:
Matt. 18:22 NIV Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
70 x 7 = 490!
Peter, true love doesn’t keep a record of wrongs!
But Jesus wants to get this message through to Peter and to all of us this morning and so He tells a parable.
Matt. 18:23-25 NIV “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
The King called for an audit! This servant was found to have owed an incalculable debt!
1 talent = 6,000 day’s wages which is 13 years of work
He owed 10,000 talents which = 130,000 years of work!
For the first time this servant is faced with the enormity of his debt! The audit made him dreadfully aware of his debt owed to the king!
The servant is naïve before the king. Look at what he says:
Matt. 18:26 NIV “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’
I’ll pay you back! He is as naïve as many Christians who think that somehow they merited God’s grace and favor because of their works!
What was the King’s response to the servant’s remorse?
Matt. 18:27 NIV The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
Now that is a sign of mercy and grace!
The King could have put him in prison for life!
But he forgave the debt and let the man go free!
So what does the man learn from receiving this grace?
Matt. 18:28 NIV “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
He found someone who owed him some pocket change and he grabbed him, choked him and begged him to pay! The man begged him for mercy and look at how the first servant reacted!
Matt. 18:30 NIV “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.
This disheartened the other servants who witnessed all of this!
Matt. 18:31 NIV When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
AND HOW DID THE KING RESPOND?
Matt. 18:32-34 NIV “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
The servant could have been liberated, forgiven and free! Now he is going to be tormented for the rest of his life!
NOW LET’S INTERPRET THE PARABLE
The King is God Himself!
The Servant with the great debt - is each and every one of us in this room!
Each of us owe God an astronomical debt for our sin!
The word for sin in Luke 11:4 =
“…missing the mark!”
“Falling short of God’s standard”
Rom. 3:23 NIV …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Rom. 6:23 NIV For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We had no way that we could have paid God back for the debt we owed to Him for our sin! Nothing we could have done would ever, I repeat, ever, have satisfied His Holiness and righteous!
10,000 years of suffering in hell would not even begin to pay the interest payment on the debt!
“We owed a Debt we could not pay.”
The servant who owed a minor debt is someone who has wrong us and we fail to forgive them!
Individuals wrong us and we want to grab them by the neck and choke them and demand that they pay us for the debt they owe us!
You hurt me!
You wronged me!
You’re going to pay for what you did!
WHAT DOES THIS TYPE OF BEHAVIOR DO FOR THE CAUSE OF CHRIST?
Matthew 18:31 NIV When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
The lack of forgiveness and love amongst the believers in the body of Christ grieved the other Christians! Christ ruling in our hearts is suppose to make us different!
This upsets the KING!
What does He do? He sees that the forgiven servant wanted to live by justice and not by grace and so He measures out to Him the full penalty of the Law!
Matthew 18:34 NIV In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
Thrown into prison to be tormented and tortured! The parable isn’t talking about Christians being thrown into hell after they have been forgiven by the LORD Jesus Christ.
Many Christians are living in prisons of their own making!
Failing to enjoy their fellowship with God!
Feeling unforgiven!
Tormented!
Bitter!
Forgiveness allows your heart to be unshackled and set free! It allows you to enjoy the power and joy of your salvation!
The first part of the parable deals with our judicial pardon by God! The parable is talking about our justification before God where by His grace we are declared righteous!
Rom. 8:1 NIV Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
Our forgiveness of others who have hurt us deals with how we maintain our intimacy and relationship with God. Jesus is teaching us how we are to enjoy perfect and complete fellowship with God!
Our forgiving others allows God to forgive us and walk intimately with us!
UNFORGIVENESS CREATES MANY PROBLEMS FOR THE CHRISTIAN:
1) It hinders and keeps our prayers from being answered!
2) It hinders our fellowship and intimacy with the Father.
3) It invites God’s discipline on us!
Hebr. 12:6 NIV because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”
“He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must someday pass.”
Lord Herbert
“Unless you have forgiven others, you read your own
death-warrant when you repeat the Lord’s Prayer.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
WARNING!
The LORD Jesus Christ places a premium on forgiveness!
Matt. 6:14-15 NIV For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matt. 18:35 NIV “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
When thinking about forgiveness each of us needs to think through whether it is we can’t forgive someone or whether it is we won’t forgive someone!
If we habitually and willfully can’t forgive, and won’t forgive, we then need to consider whether we are a Christian in the first place!
I’m not saying that the hurt isn’t real!
I’m not saying that time might not be needed!
I’m not saying we need to excuse sinful behavior!
I’m not saying that we might not need God’s strength and power to do it!
But a willful, hard, and unforgiving heart, may indicate the absence of the Holy Spirit and salvation!
Rom. 8:9 NIV You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
The Holy Spirit motivates and prompts us to forgive!
Eph. 4:32 NIV Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Joseph forgave his brothers!
David forgave King Saul
Stephen forgave those who were stoning him
The LORD Jesus Christ forgave those who put Him on the cross and all of us who put our faith and trust in Him as our LORD and Savior.
Forgiveness cannot be done in our own strength and power! We need the Holy Spirit to help us forgive those who hurt us!
Susan Maycinik gives us this advice on learning how to forgive:
1) Resolve not to let the offense cause you to sin.
2) Don’t harden your heart against the offender.
3) Remember that God would forgive your offender.
4) Resolve to forgive every day.
5) Seek help from mature believers.
Discipleship Journal, Plodding Towards Forgiveness
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE HATFIELD-MCCOY FEUD?
“In May 1976, Jim McCoy and Willis Hatfield – the last two survivors of the original families – shook hands at a public ceremony dedicating a monument to six of the victims. Jim McCoy died February 11, 1984, at age 99. He bore no grudges – and had his burial handled by the Hatfield Funeral Home in Toler, Kentucky.
ANOTHER GREAT EXAMPLE:
“Mamie Mobley’s only son was visiting relatives and friends in Mississippi one summer in 1956. Outside a general store, with boys playing games on the front porch, eleven-year-old Emmett decided to go into the store and buy some bubble gum and candy. As Emmett and some other boys came out of the store someone asked Emmett, “How’d you like that lady in the store?” Emmett whistled his approval. Someone nearby heard his whistle and did not like an African-American whistling at a Caucasian woman.
It was 2:30 AM the next Sunday when two men stormed into the house where Emmett was staying and took him at gunpoint. Three days later they discovered his badly beaten body. I’ve been told the hardest thing in the world is losing a child. Years after the tragedy she was asked, ‘Don’t you harbor any bitterness toward the two men?”
Mamie’s reply reveals the depth of her faith: “From the very beginning that’s the question that has always been raised. What they had done was not for me to punish and it was not for me to go around hugging hate to myself, because hate would destroy me. It wouldn’t hurt them. I did not wish them dead. I did not wish them in jail.
If I had to, I could take their four little children and I could raise those children as if they were my own and I could love them. I believe the LORD meant what He said, and I try to live according to the way I’ve been taught.” Throughout his terrible ordeal she can honestly say, “I haven’t spent one night hating those people.”
The questions we need to ask ourselves this morning
is which path are we going to chose?
The Path of Obedience, Following after
Christ’s Commands and desires?
1 Pet. 2:21 NIV To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
1 Pet. 2:23-24 NIV When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
Or are we going to live a life of torment and lack of intimate fellowship because we are not set free because we refuse to forgive those who hurt us?
A life of keeping lists? Keeping track of wrongs? Tit for tat!
Jesus forgave us the greatest debt anyone could ever owe!
Are we walking in the full understanding of grace?
Can’t we learn to forgive one another?
Do we need to go and make something right with another?
“True forgiveness rises from a deep-rooted trust
in Jesus Christ and the values of His kingdom.”
Kathy E. Dahlen, FREE TO FORGIVE, Discipleship Journal
