Forgiveness In Community

Scripture today is from the 18th chapter of Matthew, verses 15 through 35. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained a brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the Church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if any of two agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Then Peter came up and said to him, lord, how often shall my brother sin against me? An I forgive him as many as seven times. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the reckoning, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. And as he could not pay, his Lord 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, lord, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the Lord of that servant released him and forgave him his debt. But that same servant, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. And seizing him by the throat, he said, pay what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and besought him, have patience with me, and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison till he could pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their Lord all that had taken place. Then his Lord summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you besought me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger his Lord delivered him to the jailers till he could pay all the debt. So also my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. Thanks, ivan. All right, we have More wires up here than telephone lines. I, from time to time go in the back just to see things. I really feel badly that you can't see very well up here. You may not feel bad about it, but I think it's important to be able to be able to see clearly. And we're going to try to talk Bradley's into doing something about the lighting so we can get some more direct lighting up here and bear with that. And I may walk back from time to time in the aisle to just to be sure that you know that it's really me if you don't recognize my voice. Back in 1943, the Tomlinson Church of God entered its first crisis since its founding. It had been a very successful church, and at that time, the founder, his last name was Tomlinson, passed away in a power struggle followed between his two sons, whose names were Homer and Milton. And for a long period of time, it was a very bitter struggle until finally, about a year and a half later, Milton emerged as the now established leader of the Tomlinson Church of God. And his brother Homer was thrown out of the church and headed off somewhere else until a year after that, he showed up in New York and established what he called the Church of God World Headquarters. So now there were two Churches of God, Church of God, Tomlinson, and Church of God World Headquarters. Well, this really upset Homer, who had been left behind. And he went then and restructured the Tomilton Church and called it the Church of God of Prophecy, which was the true Church of God. Now, this is a Christian church and a Christian denomination, but what it evidenced is something that we see all throughout the church today. That is that when there becomes a point of tension between to people, to groups, to churches, whatever, very frequently the inability to forgive leads to heartache, sorrow, and ultimately division and hurt. We've been talking about community for the last couple of weeks, and we've been talking about love and community. Last week we mentioned the fact that love was that which viewed the preciousness of an object apart from what it did the week before that. We talked about acceptance and freedom. We talked about the fact that in community, no matter where you're coming from, you're accepted when you come here, no matter what you've been into, no matter where you've been struggling, no matter how bad you've been. In community, God gives us acceptance. Not license, but acceptance. But today I want to talk about the quality of community without which no community will endure. Because, you see, without forgiveness, there will be no ongoing Northway Christian community. And the reason is, brothers and sisters, that all around you you see people who are frail. All around you, you see people who are going to fail. Right in front of you at this moment, you see someone who's bound to make mistakes. And without forgiveness, we who have established for ourselves some sort of high standard of righteousness or holiness or whatever, may find it unbearable when someone fails and consequently will break up. I read that, and I believe that this is right. Any community is only one year from total estrangement. Not too long ago, I had the privilege of counseling Brian and Jill, a couple who had gotten married under very normal circumstances. They were deeply in love. They'd gone through a pretty long courtship. And they had really thought they had started out with everything going for them. They had the same interests, and they liked to do a lot of the similar things. And they both had a relationship to God and this kind of thing. And they had a lot of love for each other. But about two years into their marriage, Brian failed. He failed his wife. He wasn't unfaithful to her in an adulterous kind of relationship, but he was really unfaithful to her in meeting her needs emotionally and spiritually. And that failure was so deep in Jill's mind that she wasn't able to even understand how to forgive him. And that unforgiveness then led to other things. And a year and a half after this, failure really came to a head. Jill and Brian were divorced. You see, many marriages come to a point of having everything falling together for them beautifully. And then suddenly there's a fracture of some sort. And unforgiveness becomes a barrier and the marriage doesn't go on. And marriage, you see, to me, is the ultimate community. Consequently, if it doesn't work in marriage and unforgiveness is a barrier in that relationship, the same is bound to be true in a fellowship such as ours. We need to look today at what the Bible says about forgiveness and unforgiveness so that we get a handle on. On how we can learn to deal with failure. And there's a lot of important truth here in the Scripture. And I'm really excited about some of the things the Lord showed me. I want to use the overhead for just a moment, even though it's somewhat awkward for me to get over there today, because I want to point out to you some things that I discovered from the scriptures. I never realized quite the power with which the Scriptures link forgiveness and. And growth in a personal fashion. And you may want to check these in your Bible, as I'm doing this, I discovered that if you will not forgive another, you will block in your life, first of all, your own forgiveness. The Bible clearly says in Matthew 6, 1st, 14 and 15 that if you will not forgive your brother from your heart, neither will the heavenly Father forgive you. And so if there's something in you against a brother or a sister, and you're asking God for forgiveness for your sins, you might as well save your breath. If you hate someone else, if you are bitter towards someone else, the Bible says that God will not forgive you. This parable that we're going to look at a little more in detail clearly says, don't expect God to grant you forgiveness if you're not willing to extend that forgiveness on. It's a really important thing, brothers and sisters, we won't look up all these scriptures for the sake of time, but you may want to jot them down. I realize that the Lord in Mark 11 and here also in Matthew 18 links the prayer of faith, which many of us have come to see as a PowerPoint in our walk with Christ with unforgiveness. At the end of Mark 11:24 is that very precious promise that if you have but a faith, as a grain of a mustard seed say to this mountain be removed, and the sea and will be, and that whole thing of power. And yet right after that, the same verse, there's no break in the grammar at all. It talks about forgiveness. You've got to have forgiveness in your heart. The Bible says that in order to have acceptable worship, if you're there with your gift at the altar, it says in Matthew 5, and you have something against your brother, leave your gift, turn around and get it straight with your brother, and then go back. And so we were here today and we had a wonderful time before the Lord. How many of you enjoyed that worship? It was really rich, wasn't it? And yet you may have been here and found yourself like, this is hollow. This doesn't really seem to do anything for my soul. One reason may be that you have something against a brother or sister. Healing is linked in Scripture to unforgiveness. James 5:16 and Mark 2, where the Paralytic is, you know, lowered in through the roof, and Jesus looks at him and said, son, your sins are forgiven. And then rise up, take up your pallet and go home. James 5 talks about confessing your faults, your sins, one to another, and the prayer of faith by the elders will heal you. And finally, your gift of giving, or as it were, your Stewardship is linked with unforgiveness. And you may want to fill the offering box to overflowing with your money. But if you're bitter toward a brother or sister, God's not going to receive that. Now, if you look at these five points here that I just picked out of the New Testament, you'll see that part of the reason many of you, many of us may be struggling in the walk with the Lord that he's called us to. One reason we may not be seeing breakthrough in matters of faith and deliverance and healing and power is because there may be deep inside of us a root of forgiveness, unforgiveness that's taken hold. And as I was preparing this week, the Lord impressed me that there would be some here who desperately need to see the reality of what we're going to talk about today, whose life has been held back in its growth because of unforgiveness. And you'll listen today and you'll wonder, is that for me? And I want to urge you today, think before the Lord. Ask the Lord, is this for me? Is there something in me that's a barrier between my fulfillment and Jesus? Is there unforgiveness in my heart towards someone? But not only is it an individual matter, it's a corporate matter as well. It's a matter for the whole church. We as a community will only go as far as we learn to forgive one another. I'll tell you, there's just no getting around that. There's a corporate dimension of this thing of forgiveness and unforgiveness. Beloved, that is vital for us because we are going to fail. People are not going to get the rooms cleaned out. The children's ministry is going to take a while to get started. The youth ministry may not be what we want it to be right off. You may not like the sound of my voice. Jan may start in the wrong key or maybe something far worse than all of those things. And yet without forgiveness, we have no hope of ever going on past these initial stages together. Look in Matthew 18, let's try to keep link with the Scriptures here. Do you see how significant it is that in Matthew 18, 15, 17, Jesus specifically talks about failure and forgiveness? Do you see that? It's under the title of church discipline. But then right after it, verse 17. Then he goes right into verse 18 and says, Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. The binding and loosing prayer of authority. How many of you have Prayed a prayer of authority this week. All right, many of you, if there is unforgiveness in your heart, those were words that fell on the ground before you. And then Jesus talks about his presence. You know the word for agreement there? You see it in verse 19. If two of you agree, that's the word symphonio in the Greek. Obviously, we get the word symphony. It's a harmonious chord of God's people's hearts being made one. And that doesn't happen when there's bitterness and when there's jockeying for position and unforgiveness in people's hearts. Now, the interesting thing is that the Church of Jesus Christ through the centuries has tried to legislate unity. And the World Council of Churches is the grandest illustration of a debacle of institutionalized unity. That sounded pretty good, didn't it? I didn't make that. That's not in my notes. But that's true. People, they're practically selling arms to one another now to shoot down. Are you in the world Council? Yeah. I used to have people call me and say, if your church is in the World Council of Churches, I'm not coming. People are getting really upset about. But you can't legislate unity. You can't legislate a right heart toward one another. Denominations aren't going to make it. It's a unity of the spirit that we yearn for together. And I'll tell you something, God is not impressed with all the externals. You see, all through the ages of the church, the Lord has looked at our hearts. He knows what's in our hearts, beloved. And we might lift our hands and our voices and our hearts and our hands and praise the Lord together. But if we can't stand the person that's sitting behind us, God's not interested. The Bible says that Jesus said in Matthew 15 that these people praise me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. We don't want that kind of thing. It's relationship. God knows what's happening between us. It was interesting when I was about two years ago looking for the Lord's will in my ministry and where I was to be. I visited a couple of churches. One church out in Indiana, I remember very distinctly where the people said, now here are the people that are the elders and here are the people that are deacons in the church. But tonight we're going to have dinner with the people who are really in power. Wow. And I started reading those proverbs about when you sit at A table of a wealthy man put a knife to your throat. And I was all uptight because the people of. And then it dawned on me. God couldn't be moving in that church because the people of power weren't the people who were in established leadership. And you can imagine that you could hear department stores are such a nightmare of gossip. You ever go in a department store and see two clerks talking about somebody else? Had that happen yesterday. And I wish I'd had my 85 pound Bible to drop on the floor because it's so you can just feel the enemy grinding people up in that thing. Well, in the church, God, if we're saying, hallelujah, praise the Lord, or if we're doing all these things but we don't love one another, if we're not forgiving one another, then God's not impressed. God's looking at our hearts. It's always been that way. And whatever gets accomplished in churches today, many churches today, it's because of human effort and zeal. And I'll tell you, there's some really slick people who are merchandising the gospel today and doing a good job of it. And I'm not about to start condemning ministries. I'm not into that. But I believe that you can tell the difference between a real work of the spirit and people who just have enough charisma to carry a ministry. And Lord forbid that we ever get to be that kind of people. Here's a principle for you. God expects you to give away everything that he gives to you. Jesus said in his teaching. The scribes and Pharisees kept saying, where did he get that? He's a carpenter's son, he never went to school. Jesus said to him, and John, my teaching comes from my Father. I say to you what he said to me. I give to you what he gave to me. That's what Jesus was saying. God expects you to give away what he gives to you. All through the Word we see illustrations of being a channel, giving away what we get, giving away what we get. It's the same with forgiveness, beloved. We must give away the forgiveness we've been given. How can we possibly not forgive a brother or sister when we've been forgiven so much? And we're going to look a little bit more at that in a moment. And I want to say this, the principle goes one step farther. The only proof of your possession of a quality of God is that you've given it away. The only way that you can prove that you have something in the kingdom is that you give it to someone else. That's why it says in First John 3 that the proof that we are. Look at this turn there. You need to see this first John 3. How do you know you're safe today? Well, I ask Jesus into my heart. Look at 1 John 3, 14, first John. That's in the back. Alright. Chapter three, verse 14. Here we go. We know that we have passed out of death into life because we say, praise the Lord, because we give a lot in the offering box, because we love the brethren. That's how we know. Don't say that. I've got all this righteousness and all this Bible knowledge if you don't love the brethren. And part of the umbrella of love, beloved, is forgiveness, extending forgiveness one to another. And do you see? This is why community is so vital. I never used to know how to respond to people who would say in such a righteous kind of fashion, something like, if you talk to them about God, they'll say, have you ever heard this? Well, I think religion is a personal matter. It sounds so. Well, yeah, it is personal. I mean, it's your life and your heart. But the Bible, God's word absolutely links your personal relationship with Jesus with your personal relationship with the person that you're sitting beside right now. You can't separate them. And so the person that says, my church is out in the woods on a mountaintop, I don't need to go to church. Ever hear that one? What they're saying to you is, I have designed a box for God and I've put him in it. And the Lord says, I've designed a life for you. Are you going to walk in it? And there's a big difference. And that's why I praise the Lord for Northway Christian community. We can learn how to live out these things. We, we can learn how to give away insights from the Word. We can learn how to give away the bounty of our provisions, the forgiveness of the Lord. If God gives us a sensitivity or a discernment into someone's life, we can give that away. If God reveals something of his character to us, I can call grant up and say, brother, I found this in the Word and it's just blessing me. We can do that. Oh, if you haven't entered into that yet, then begin to see it. So freeing. And God, you know what you find the more you give away. What does Luke 6 say happens the more you get. Now we take that Luke 6, 37, 38, and we tie that in with stewardship. Well, If I give 20 in God's going to give me 30 back. But God makes it much bigger than that. If we give away forgiveness, we're going to receive so much more abundantly of his forgiveness. If we give away love, we're going to receive love. Do you see that? It's a beautiful thing that the Lord's promised us. Now I can think with some of you as I thought to myself, well, I don't hate anybody. Some of the nicest people I know are right here in this room. Some of the nicest people I know aren't even Christians. You know any nice people who aren't Christians? I don't hate anybody. Well, let me say two things. First of all, unforgiveness does not always reveal itself as hate. We're going to look at some of the ways that you can discern if there's unforgiveness in your heart in just a moment. But second, you might come to a point where you do and I pray to God that before you leave this fellowship, if it's because of something that I've done or someone else has done before you leave and go hafta and you're inner man and all bent out of shape that you come to a person and say, you've hurt me. What a precious thing Matthew 18 describes for us. Coming to a brother or sister, saying, you've offended me. I'm broken in my spirit because forgiveness is such a sweet thing. Such a sweet thing. Now let's look for a moment here. How do we know that we have unforgiveness in our hearts? Well, in the story that we read or that Ivan read for us, let's pick it up here. Verse 26. After the servant had been accosted by the king, he says in verse 26, so the servant fell on his knees and imploring him, lord, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him, the Lord of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. Now look at verse 28. Here's one way you know you have unforgiveness in your heart. But that same servant, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. And seizing him by the throat, he said, pay what you owe. So when you start seizing people by the throat, When you want to take somebody now you may not literally physically do it, but you want to take them by the lapels. And that might be an indication there's something stewing in your heart there towards somebody else, right? Generally, you know, when there's something in you towards someone else. Right. Generally, you know, it. It shows itself in a lot of different ways. It may have been a specific action that triggered something in you, a very specific thing where somebody left you out. One thing I learned as a pastor along the way is people expect you, first of all to know their name, no matter how many times you've seen them. Then they expect you, every time that you see them, to have 20 minutes to talk about whatever is happening that day. And one time I remember distinctly that we were passing somebody in the mall and I said, hello. I think I might even remember their name, which would have been terrific. But I didn't stop because we had the army behind us and we were moving along. We didn't talk. Well, it came back to me. And then for weeks after that at church, people were saying, I noticed this individual was just walking by, just never seen. Well, I finally said, what's the problem? After about a month or so of this. And they said, well, I just think that when you see someone, you know, you ought to take time and talk with them. You know, Something I had very innocently done and very naturally just happened to them became a point of bitterness. Now, that's a little illustration. It happens a lot. But there may be some very different and difficult things in you. Let me say something to young people, those of you who are in dating relationships. I hope you learn how to have a relationship that can be enjoyed in the Lord and broken off in the Lord. So much bitterness is planted in people's hearts because they don't know how to end a relationship in the Lord. Young people learn that it'll save you a lot of grief as you go, guys. You learn that if you call yourself a Christian, then learn how to care for a gal. And if you want to break off that relationship or she does, then learn how to do it in such a way that you're not going to leave a big scar in your life. Unforgiveness shows itself in a lot of different ways. There might be resentment in you. There might be a grudge that you have against somebody. It may show itself by anxiety. When you're together. Have you ever found yourself when you see somebody walking again, maybe in the mall or across a parking lot, and you almost involuntarily go the other way? Come on, you do. Well, that indicates that something inside of you toward that person, it's probably not just right yet. And you may know exactly what it is, or it may be something you'll have to work at a little bit. Another thing is defensiveness. You find that when a person, or maybe it's a group of people, quit laughing. Now you're revealing things. You know, when a person laughs, it's more than just thinking it's funny. They say, oh boy, it just happened to me. But defensiveness is another. When you're with a particular person, you find that you're always watching what you say. And if they even come close to attacking anything that you like, oh, well, I don't think it's that way. Always defensive, always kind of looking for some little slip up that's a sign of unforgiveness. And then there's one that the Bible specifically talks about. Turn to Hebrews chapter 12. Look at verse 14 and 15. Hebrews 12 Strive for peace with all men and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Look at verse 15. Now see to it that no one fail to obtain the grace of God. That no root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble. And by it the many become defiled. A root of bitterness. Do you know something? That resentment towards someone else does you more damage than it does them. If you're unforgiving towards somebody, it's eaten your gut out a whole lot more than it's hurting them. And that's why it's called a root of bitterness. You get the image in the word there. It's down inside and knotted around in there. It'll destroy you. Bitterness will eat you up. Bitterness puts people in hospital beds. And I just trust that if you sense any of these symptoms in you, you're willing to say, well, Lord, maybe I have more unforgiveness in me than I really thought. But there's one other thing I want to mention. It's not really as obvious as some of the others. Unforgiveness is also revealed by hurt. Some of you have had a background from families or from other experiences in church or whatever, where you have been hurt by a parent, a relative, someone who didn't love you. And you think that you're over it because you've erected some sort of a means of dealing with the emotion when you're together. But deep inside you realize that you're still hurt because your dad didn't spend any time with you when you were growing up. Your mom kept telling you how lousy you were. I'll tell you, there are hurts that bind people up. The unforgiveness that gets in people toward others, toward their relatives, toward their parents, it'll ruin you and God wants to deal with that. Three years ago, I had an opportunity to mention, I think I might have mentioned this, but I talked about a boy who had been adopted. And he grew up fairly normally until he was about 13. And then he went through a terrifically, terrifically difficult period of rebellion. And no matter what the parents, the parents who had adopted him and did they talk to him, they tried to befriend him, they tried to do things with him, they tried to spend extra time and all this, well, they found out when they got down to the core of it that when he was about 13 years old, this young guy realized that he hated his real parents, even though he didn't know he hated them because they had left him to another family. And you see that bitterness, that unforgiveness in his heart was ruining all of his other relationships. Some of us here today need to be healed of family relationships. Some of us here today need to be healed of a relationship with a boss. There are some men here today, you hate your boss. There's unforgiveness in your heart toward him. And these things, beloved, they'll eat you. You won't eat them. Now, what does it mean to forgive? What does it mean to forgive? Alright, let's turn Back to Matthew 18. What do the Scriptures say? Verse 27. Out of pity for him, the Lord of that son servant released him and forgave him the debt. Forgiveness. There was a formula that was kind of taught through Bill Gothard and many of you may have picked it up along the way, that when somebody wrongs you, or let's say you wrong someone else, let's say that I'm at fault to Paul. Well, I come to Paul after I recognize and I say, paul, I wronged you in this fashion. Would you forgive me? Not just I'm sorry, but would you forgive me? I ask him to forgive me. I go through that little formula. Paul then has the choice of saying, yes, I will or no, I won't. And somehow that formula, as essential as it is to verbalize forgiveness, that formula was then kind of seen as being all that it took to be forgiven. But you see, it didn't allow for the anger in him, the resentment that may have been built up in him, and the lack of trust that had come as a result. And so get this down first in your mind. As important as it is to verbalize forgiveness towards someone, it's not enough. You can't end there. You can't just say, sure, I forgive you. It's important to Say, you know, Jesus said on the cross, what did he say about the people who put him there? To the Father, Father, forgive him. He said it out loud. So it's important to say the words, but we've got to go beyond that. We have to see that that doesn't complete the process of forgiveness. The Greek word for forgiveness is apheimi A P H E E M I AP H E M I for those of you who are taking notes and it means literally to send away or release. Catherine Marshall in her book Something More, said that forgiveness is releasing another from your personal judgment. I like that. It's releasing another from your personal judgment, your right to say they're wrong. And I think forgiveness really goes beyond. And a definition that I put together was that to forgive means not only to release the past, but to seize the present and hope for the future, release the past, seize the present and hope for the future. You see, forgiveness goes beyond just clearing the slate from what was back there and kind of getting it looks towards something better happening. And that's what the Lord Jesus wants to work in us. That's the kind of forgiveness that he wants us to give to one another. Complete forgiveness is restoration of right relationship. Alright, how do I forgive? How do I forgive? There's a couple beautiful points that are here in the scripture. How do I forgive? Look what the Lord did for the servant. Verse 27. Let's begin at 24. When he began the reckoning, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents and he could not pay. And his Lord 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, lord, have patience with me and I will pay you everything. Verse 27. And out of pity for him, the Lord of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. The very first thing that we need to see that comes through this whole story is we can forgive because God has forgiven us. Before you deal with bitterness in your heart, realize how much the Lord has forgiven you. Now, this story uses a couple of terms that get lost in the Greek translation. The word there, that's translated talent. And some of your books, your Bibles with notes on it, it'll say a talent is equal to. Is it 15 days labor? I believe 15 years labor. That's right. Thank you. 15 years labor, that's a lot of money. 10,000 talents is 150,000 years worth of labor. And I figured out at $10,000 that would be One and a half billion dollars. So you see, the Lord is intentionally making a tremendous comparison. He's saying, see how much I've forgiven you? I've forgiven you 150,000 years worth of labor. Can't you forgive your brother or sister, some little thing? So that's the first thing. Come to God and see how much you've been forgiven. The next thing is you face a choice, a choice of forgiveness. And the first step of that choice is to see that person as worthy of your love, as an object precious in and of their own right apart from what they did or didn't do. You have to choose to do this. But look, the word pity there in verse 27. I looked that up and you know, in the Greek, that is the word which means the inner bowels of a man. What it's saying is that the Lord of the servant and his inner man saw the worth of that other man. He had pity, he had compassion from inside of him. And he saw the preciousness of that servant apart from what he had done. That's your choice. That's the first part of forgiving someone. To see them as wor