If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1John 1:9
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31
<<< That is the question I propose to you tonight>>>>
If God has forgiven someone then who are you to be against them?
Condemnation pours forth from evil lips. Slander and Gossip come straight from hell’s pits. When your mouth is judgmental and mean. From with in you the enemy is seen. Satan is hovering with a dividing force. Watch out my friends for their lays your spiritual divorce. Judgment from you will have to cease for the love of God to increase. That is why I stand before you this very day. To plead with you please watch what you say.
The depth of your love for others is measured in how much you forgive.
<<<<<
1 John 3:11-15
11 This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.
I say to you who stand upon condemning words and actions you do so because of your own lives or evil. For if you loved your fellow man, you would forgive them not condemn them. Words of judgment are a prideful persons way of covering their own shortcomings.
Gal
6:1 Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
NIV
The law of Christ can be summed up in this one statement in:
Matt 22:37-40
37 Jesus replied: "’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ’Love your neighbor as yourself.
To restore your brother gently means in love, in understanding and with respect the same way that you would like to be treated.
You see when you will not forgive others offences you will not be forgiven.
Matt 6:14-15
14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
It doesn’t get much plainer than that, with that in mind who here would like to hold someone else’s sin against them.
I heard a man introduce his children one day.
This is Pete. He’s the clumsy one of the bunch
That’s Kathy coming in with mud on her shoes. She’s the sloppy one.
As always Mike is last he’ll be late for his own funeral I promise you.
This dad did a through job of gluing his children to their faults and mistakes
People do it to us and those we love all the time. They remind us of our failures, our errors, our sins and they won’t let us live them down.
When we don’t let people forget their past, when we don’t forgive, we glue them to their mistakes and refuse to see them as; more than something they have done. However, when we forgive, we gently pry the doer of the hurtful deed form the deed itself, and we say that the past is just that the past and over and done with.
God dose exactly that for us. When we accept his forgiveness, he separates us form our sins. As for as the east is form the west the psalmist says, which means as far as you can imagine, that offence will be wiped away, blotted out.
That is the good news and the news of the gospel we do not have to remain in bondage, glued to our sins. The healing power of the Lord is ours for the asking.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1John 1:9
Forgiveness liberates both parties
To forgive is to be free form the sin of judgment, condemnation and bitterness. To be forgiven is to be set free from our sins.
I want to share with you a story that is the very essence of what I am saying. How when you forgive, you unglue the mistakes of individuals and give them the freedom to grow as Christians and you free yourself to grow also.
A man came back to work in a place from which he had been fired several months previously. His work was now superior. A fellow worker remembered how inconsistent he had been in the past and asked, “What happened to make such a difference in you? The man told this story: When I was in college I was part of a fraternity initiation committee. We placed the new members in the middle of a long stretch of country road. I was to drive my car at a great as speed as possible straight at them. The challenge was for them to stand firm until a signal was given o jump out of the way. It was a dark night. I had reached one hundred miles an hour and saw their looks of terror in the headlights. The signal was given and everyone jumped clear – except one boy. I left college after that. I later married and have 2 children. The look on that boy’s face as I passed over him at a hundred miles an hour stayed in my mind all the time. I became hopelessly inconsistent, moody, and finally became a problem drinker. My wife had to work to bring in the only income we had. I was drinking at home one morning when someone rang the doorbell. I opened to find myself facing a woman who seemed strangely familiar. She sat down in my living room and told me she was the mother of the boy I had killed years before. She said that she had hated me and spent agonizing nights rehearsing ways to get revenge. I then listened as she told me of the love and forgiveness that had come when she gave her heart to Christ. She said, “I have come to let you know that I forgive you and I want you to forgive me.” I looked into her eyes that morning and I saw deep in her eyes the permission to be the kind of man I might have been had I never killed that boy. That forgiveness changed my whole life.
Do you hold this same power over another individual, is God calling you to forgive someone of a past or present wrong. Do you need forgiveness, the forgiveness that only God can give? Then I ask you come tonight, pray and receive the forgiveness that God has for you. If you have been condescending towards someone else for their shortcomings, if you judge every move of others then tonight come and ask God to forgive you and help you overcome. Tonight ask that you would be the one to restore your brother gently as Galatians 6 tells us.
