We Forgive, We Forget and We Fight On
Luke 23:34
INTRODUCTION
A. THINK OF NUMEROUS THINGS THAT WOULD PUSH MY CAPACITY TO FORGIVE
1. Certain things happening to my children, wife, family
2. Repetitive occurrences
3. Lack for remorse, smugness coming from the offender
B. A FARMER AND HIS SON TRAVELING BY HORSE AND BUGGY UP A NARROW LANE, MET A MOTORIST GOING THE OTHER WAY.
1. There wasn’t any room to pass for two miles in either direction. The motorist, in a hurry, honked horn and yelled out the window.
2. The farmed rolled up his sleeves and said, “If you don’t back up I won’t like what I’m goin got have to do.”
3. The surprised driver put his car in reverse and backed up two miles allowing the horse and buggy to go by.
4. “What was it you wouldn’t have liked to have done back there pa?” asked the farmer’s son? “Back up two miles,” replied the farmer.
C. FRENCH REVOLUTION THERE WAS A PHRASE USED, “BE MY BROTHER OR I WILL KILL YOU.”
1. James Hilton said in Time & Time Again, “If you forgive people enough you belong to the, and they to you, whether either person likes it or not – squatter’s rights of the heart.”
2. No one in the world ever attempted to wrong another without being injured in return – someway, somehow, somewhere. Doing an injury puts you below you enemy; Revenging one makes you even with him; Forgiving it sets you above him.
D. SOMETIMES WE THINK THE ACT OF REQUESTING FORGIVENESS IS AN INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT TASK, BUT I HAVE COME TO LEARN THAT GRANTING FORGIVENESS IS AS A DIFFICULT TASK.
1. I need again to refresh our thoughts about this year…growing from acorn to oak . Our quarterly themes being, “The Planting, The Watering, The Sapling and now the Oak.”
2. And as we discuss the Oak, we are discussing the epitome of growth, Christ as the standard of our standard for growth. What he not only verbalized, but demonstrated.
E. DAN RIPLEY AND ABE LINCOLN
1. Ripley’s two sons, Will oldest in Civil War, Dan stayed home with Jack the Collie dog to work, dad invalid
a. Dad shoots Jack, the Collie, killed the sheep
b. Dan runs away
2. Lincoln same night contemplating the execution of 24 men
3. Early morning, the two meet
a. Why that you never forget the kind and just things that your fathers has done over the past 14 years.
b. One deed cancels a pile of good deeds
4. Your punishing your father because he did one deed that he couldn’t very well help just as if he’d been a mean man all his life.
5. 24 Deserters – served faithfully for years, so can any one thing they do be so gross, so enormously bad as to blot out all the rest, including probably a lifetime of decent living? Is a man to blame for having a pair of legs that play coward once?
6. We will have 24 fighters instead of deserters dead in the ground. We’ll have joy at home instead of sorrow. We forgive, we forget and we fight on.
E. THE STANDARD OF FORGIVENESS
1. Begins in Matthew 6, The Sermon on the Mount, the Lord’s Prayer, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
2. Matthew 9, Jesus is healing a paralytic, and seeing the faith of the people says to the paralytic, “Take courage, My son, your sins are forgiven.”
a. Scribes call this blaspheme. Jesus then asks question, “Which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven or to say, Rise and walk. But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” Jesus turns to the paralytic and says, “Rise, take up your bed and go home.”
b. Jesus can forgive sins because He is the One we’ve offended.
3. Matthew 18, Peter of all people asks how many times he should forgive a brother who sins against him, throwing out the number 7 times?
a. Jesus says, 70 x 7 and adds a little story to go with it.
b. Illustrating that God will always suffer the burden of greater forgiveness and that in verse 27 is the key, “And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt.”
c. Two key words, Compassion and debt
4. Brings us to Luke 23:34, crucified between two thieves, he says, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
GOD’S FORGIVENESS OF OUR INDEBTEDNESS
Matthew 6 & 9
A. MATTHEW 6
1. Has an interesting relationship pattern perhaps we miss. Going to God in forgiveness means you have set in place your own life.
a. You have cancelled the debts of small indebtedness before you beseech God to forgive you own larger debt
b. Mark 11:25, “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your transgressions.”
c. Matthew 5:23, “If therefore you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that you brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your offering.”
2. We have borrowed from the world the ideology of trickle down forgiveness, when in fact scripturally we should stand before God having already cleared the docket.
B. MATTHEW 9
1. Verse 2 is interesting. Jesus comment is, “Take courage, My son, your sins are forgiven.”
a. The faith of others brought the man to Jesus
b. Sin is paralyzing, causes a breach of relationship and creates an aloneness.
c. Jesus awakens the man’s senses, lifts the bars of confinement
2. Take up your bed and go home.
a. Gives him the day
b. Lamentations 3:19-24, “Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind therefore I have hope. The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I have hope in Him.”
C. MATTHEW 18 – THE DIMENSIONS AND DEPTH OF FORGIVENESS
1. The Dimensions
a. In your relationship with God, at what point do think God should cease forgiving you?
b. Forgiveness has a relationship with effort. Romans 6:1,2, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”
c. God’s love, forgiveness, grace has no parameters. But forgiveness is not synonymous with tolerance.
d. Jane Austen in Pride & Prejudice, “You ought certainly to forgive them, as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing.”
e. Not sure I buy into the phrase, “hate the sin, love the sinner.” Jesus said in Matthew 7:23, Depart from Me, you who practice Lawlessness.”
f. Forgiveness can’t come in light of a decision to practice sin openly and blantantly.
g. Sometimes we make the mistake of acting like we are forgiving someone who wants to continue in sin by our tolerance of it. The world wants us to believe it’s okay to live a life that Paul rebukes in Romans 1. The chapter concludes with these words, They not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”
2. The Depth of Forgiveness
a. The comparison of forgiveness in Matthew 18: ten thousand talents to a hundred denarii.
b. On the heals of what was discussed, we need to remember that we are forgiving debts/trespasses, God is forgiving sin.
THE MAGNITUDE OF FORGIVENESS
Luke 23:34
A. FATHER, FORGIVE THEM, FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO.
1. First indication is that Christ is sympathetic to our killing the sacrificial lamb.
2. That we would foolishly choose the opponent knowing that they will lose. That is startling.
3. To know something was going to fail, lose, be destroyed and side with that.
B. CHRIST WAS BUYING US SOME TIME. GIVING US THE ABILITY TO RETHINK, RECHOOSE.
1. Interesting the picture of Calvary. Between two thieves is innocence and forgiveness. Striking isn’t it?
2. Twas a thief said the last kind word to Christ; Christ took the kindness and forgave the theft.
CONCLUSION
A. AM I A CHRISTIAN? PREACHER ASKED
1. How many of us prayed more this week than Madaline Murray O’Hare? How many of us read our Bibles more than Hugh Hefner? How many of us have shared the gospel with more people than Fidel Castro.
2. To him who knows what to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.
B. AS JUDAS MIGHT HAVE TOLD IT, BY HAROLD BLAKE WALKER
1. The soldiers led the way, their torches lighting the Garden and casting weird shadows all about. Then I saw Jesus. He advanced to meet us unafraid. Peter and John were at his side. They both looked at me. Jesus inquired, “Whom do you seek?” I strode forward and placed a dreadful kiss upon His cheek. The chief priest spoke in a brazen voice, “We seek Jesus of Nazareth.”
2. “I am He,” the Master answered. “Take Him,” the priest commanded. But Peter, my courageous friend, drew his sword as if to fight alone. Hope flamed in my soul for a moment and then it was crushed. The old familiar spirit which I had known so long put an end to all my dreams.
3. The Master spoke again, “Put up your sword into your sheath, Simon Peter,” as he placed the ear back on Malchus. “Shall I not drink of the cup My Father has given Me?”
4. Sick of heart I turned and fled out into the night. I wandered through the darkness, fell upon my knees and prayed until my soul began to see. I heard His soft spoken words anew, “This new commandment give I unto you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.” He loved me, that I know. When my heart was black with traitorous plans, He washed my feet. When He knew I would betray Him, he bade me sit beside Him at the feast. When He saw that I would go, he gave no sign to save Himself, but let me go in peace.
5. When I returned from praying in the night, I sought again the priests. I took them back their silver bribe and begged them to let Him go. But they laughed and mocked me until I hurled their filthy coins upon the floor and fled again into the night.
6. What can I do? How can I face the world again with my false betrayal upon my heavy heart? Thinkest thou that Jesus would forgive me? Yes, I am sure He would, but Oh, my God, I can’t forgive myself.
